Brownsville Partnership Blog Page

"Department of Education layoffs hit poor areas hardest" by Juan Gonzalez

2011-08-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Education in New York City is a tough topic to argue or converse on. Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News speaks on how the Department of Education will layoff nearly 800 nonteaching professionals in New York City in low income areas. Brownsville is one of the low income areas that is being targeted. Check out the article!

(Galasso/North Jersey Media Group - FILE PHOTO)

The city's plan to lay off nearly 800 nonteaching public school employees this fall will hit the poorest districts the hardest - and spare the more affluent ones.

The disparate nature of the cuts - the biggest layoffs at any agency in the Bloomberg era - became apparent yesterday, when officials gave Local 372, which represents nonprofessional school employees, a detailed hit list.

Under the plan, District 5 in Harlem and District 6 in Washington Heights will lose almost 8% of their school aides, parent coordinators and community workers - 77 out of a total of 998.

At the same time, only five of 942 similar workers in Staten Island's District 31 - less than 1% - will get pink slips.

Likewise, three school districts in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East Flatbush and East New York will lose 4.4% of their nonprofessional workers.

But three more middle class districts in South Brooklyn that include Dyker Heights, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay and Mill Basin, will lose only 11 of 1,900 employees - less than 1%.

Those who could lose their jobs are some of the lowest-paid workers in the city and overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. School aides, the biggest group targeted, average about $11,000 a year for part-time work. Even with health insurance and pension costs factored in, the city pays about $27,000 annually for each of these workers.

"We've been trying for weeks to meet with Chancellor \[Dennis\] Walcott, and each time they canceled . . . at the last moment," said Santos Crespo, president of Local 372.

"On Monday, they just called us in and hit us with these cuts," Crespo said. "They didn't even want to discuss ways we could cooperate to reduce costs."

At a time when the school system is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for more outside contractors and consultants, it's crazy to cut the most vulnerable workers.

DOE officials say Crespo's parent union, District Council 37, is to blame.

"During the budget negotiations this June, the chancellor called Lillian Roberts \[executive director of DC 37\] . . . to work . . . to avert DOE layoffs," agency spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said.

"Unfortunately, the union would not agree to any real savings . . . so schools took a larger budget cut than might have otherwise been necessary."

In other words, if you don't do what Bloomberg wants, you and your members will suffer the consequences.

But why hit poor districts so heavily?

It could be just a coincidence, but some of the biggest cuts occurred in neighborhoods where City Council members were vocal critics of the mayor.

Ravitz said principals made all the decisions on cuts.

"Schools received their budgets at the end of June and made school level decisions about which staff they were keeping and which staff to excess," she said.

Several principals I spoke to yesterday disputed that version. They say budget officials from Tweed encouraged them to look to their nonprofessional staff for cuts.

Nevertheless, one thing seems clear: if these layoffs take effect, the poorest districts will suffer most.

Damage Caused in Brooklyn from Hurricane Irene

2011-08-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Check out this video filmed by Todd Maisel and produced by Rebecca Davis of the New York Daily News showing the damage that Hurricane Irene caused in Brooklyn!

Damage Caused in Brooklyn from Hurricane Irene

Brownsville Transfer by Jeffrey Wisotsky

2011-08-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

As Community Planning Partners, the Vision Plan an idea that we have to implement to the Brownsville community. Karrie Scarboro, Jackie Kennedy and Randy Millard along with Nupur Chaudhury have been Kaffeeklatsches and other programs/activities just keep Brownsville aware of what can/could/should be done in the community.

We would like for you to watch this mini-film by Jeffrey Wisotsky. The mini-film is called "Brownsville Transfer". Sit back and watch how the residents of Brownsville Houses create and devise their own Vision Plan.

Pack and plan ahead for Hurricane Irene; Go Bags, emergency kits and plans to keep your family safe by Karen Duffy

2011-08-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE...HURRICANE IRENE IS COMING!!! LET'S BE PREPARED!!!

Karen Duffy of the New York Daily News has devised a plan for us to go by so we can survive Hurricane Irene. Read it and pass it along!!!

Plan ahead and you'll be ready for Hurricane Irene -- or any storm that comes your way.

(Courtesy of Seth Wenig/AP)

I'm a proud daughter of the Empire State and daughter of a cop. My appreciation for our NYC emergency services is so great, it inspired me to take the Office of Emergency Management Community Emergency Response Team training.

I have been a CERT Team member with Community Board 2 for four years. I even hosted the Ready New York video on emergency preparedness.

The Office of Emergency Management breaks it down into three simple steps: Create a kit, make a plan and be informed.

Here's everything you need to keep safe during Hurricane Irene or any disaster.

Create your 'Go Bag' and Emergency Supply Kit

A "Go Bag" is a collection of items you may need in case of an emergency evacuation.

Every person in the house should have a "Go Bag" stocked and readily accessible in case you have to leave your home or office in a hurry.

Your best option for the bag itself is a backpack, which leaved hands free so you can carry a flashlight, a cell phone, or hold the hand of a loved one. A backpack on wheels or a rolling suitcase is a good alternative.

Your "Go Bag" should contain:

Copies of your important documents in a waterproof Ziploc bags. Insurance cards, ID, proof of address, special family photos.

Extra house and car keys

Credit and ATM cards

Cash. Barb Brown, Community Board 2 CERT Deputy Team Chief, suggests carrying about $50 to $100 in small denominations.

Bottled water and nonperishable food. Energy and granola bars are good options.

At least one flashlight and extra batteries. (LED flashlights are more durable and last 10 times longer than traditional ones.)

A manual radio or battery-operated radio. Manual radios often have cell phone charging features, solar power options, flashlight, siren and compass.

Medical: Keep a list of medications for each family member, why they take it and the dosage. Pack along any extra medication, if you have it.

Extra eyeglasses, if you have them.

First Aid kit

Waterproof matches, Swiss Army knife, Sharpie markers to write ID info on children, rain ponchos, thermal blankets, extra socks and undies.

Feminine hygiene items, diapers, if you need them.

Small map of the region

Items to relieve anxiety: Playing cards are a good way to keep occupied – no batteries needed.

Your Emergency Supply Kit

Your kit should contain items you and your household will need to shelter in place, meaning surviving on your own in your own home for at least three days.

Your household should know that this kit is for emergencies only, and you should check perishables for expiration dates and update your kit every six months.

When I change my clocks for Daylight Savings Time, I check my "Go Bags" and Emergency Supply Kit.

We are the primary caretakers of my husband's 101-year-old grandmother, so we keep a kit for her at our home, even thought she lives in another neighborhood.

Note: Many of these items in your Emergency Supply Kit will be in your "Go Bag." Don't forget to replace them if you use them!

Your Emergency Supply Kit should contain:

One gallon of drinking water per person, per day.

Nonperishable, ready-to-eat packaged and canned foods and a manual can opener.

First Aid Kit

Extra medications and instructions on dosage.

Flashlights, candles, matches

Manual radio or battery-operated radio and extra batteries.

Whistle

Water purification tablets or a quart of unscented bleach to use as directed by the health department. An eyedropper to add bleach to water. The standard is 16 drops of bleach per one gallon of water.

Hygiene items

Childcare items

A phone that does not need electricity (noncordless) and a manual or solar cell phone charger. Your 'land line' provided by your cable company isn't likely to work in case of a power outage.

Make a Plan

Discuss emergency preparedness with your loved ones and create a plan for your family.

Designate a location where you will meet that is not your home. Pick a street corner with a mailbox, a statue in a public park or another landmark. Just choose a place that everyone in the family knows.

A list of Emergency Shelters in your neighborhood is online. Designate a location in NYC and outside of NYC.

Decide on a contact person outside of the tristate area. NY phone systems may overload, and you will only get a busy signal. Establish a number of a contact person outside our geographic region so you and your loved ones can communicate via messages through your agreed-on third party.

Don't forget to check on elderly and infirm neighbors.

Stay calm, stay informed

The OEM has plans in place for every kind of emergency. Listen for their guidelines.

I read that in an emergency, about 80% of the population will slow down and follow the herd while 10% will freak out. The other 10% will put their leadership skills into action and will respond to the emergency with skill and calmness.

By reading this article, you are taking the first steps to making the best of a difficult situation.

Keep calm and carry on, my fellow New Yorkers!

Brownsville Oldtimers Week 2011 Photos

2011-08-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

(Mr. Greg "Jocko" Jackson at the BRC during Brownsville Oldtimers Week)

Let's give Jesse Newmann a round of applause!!! Jesse Newman is a Reporter for The Brooklyn Ink. Her mission is to cover Brownsville. Jesse is doing a great job! Check out the photos she took for Brownsville Oldtimers Week. Keep up the good work Jesse!!!

“Jocko” Keeps a Hoops Tradition Going in Brownsville

2011-08-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

If you was to ask Mr. Greg "Jocko" Jackson where was the game of Basketball invented at, he would tell you, "it was made right here in Brownsville." The game of Basketball saves a lot of lives in the community. There is an extensive list of Basketball players from Brownsville who have played professionally, on the collegiate level and also in the playground. Check out this article by Jesse Newman of The Brooklyn Ink. Brownsville has some of the best Basketball players in the World!

Local boys play basketball on the court at the Brownsville Recreation Center in Brooklyn in July. (Photo: Jesse Newman/The Brooklyn Ink)

Greg Jackson sat in the bleachers of the Brownsville Recreation Center on a Saturday in July, bouncing a grandson on one knee and squinting his eyes at the basketball game in progress before him. One by one, players rushed past, darting through the soft columns of afternoon light that flooded the Brooklyn gym, bathing the court in an ethereal glow and turning young men into silhouettes.

Smiling at the high-pitched shriek of sneakers and the shrill cry of the referee’s whistle, Jackson, a Brownsville native and manager of the rec center, pointed to the freshly painted court and bright gold uniforms flashing by. “You see,” he said. “Hope is back.”

Jackson, known simply as “Jocko” throughout Brownsville, was in 11th grade at Samuel J. Tilden High School when his guidance counselor suggested that he quit school and get a factory job. “You’re not gonna amount to much,” he remembers being told. That was over 40 years ago, before he graduated from college, played basketball for the NBA, married, raised nine children and helped rescue the rec center from near-ruin, turning it into a safe haven for young people in a neighborhood beset by violent crime.

In a city flush with pro basketball stars and legendary street ball courts, every neighborhood has its success story, and Brooklyn perhaps more than its fair share. Brownsville alone spawned a handful of famous players, including James “Fly” Williams, the mercurial darling of the American Basketball Association; World B. Free, known for his 44-inch vertical leaps and 360-degree dunks in the NBA; and Phil “The Thrill” Sellers, the six-foot-five-inch forward who led Rutgers University in its only undefeated regular season in 1976 and brought the Scarlet Knights to the Final Four that year.

But while some urban athletes rode their professional careers straight out of the ghetto, Jackson, a guard for the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns, returned to Brownsville in time to see poverty, drugs and crime devouring his neighborhood. In 1997, then-City Council member Priscilla A. Wooten recruited Jackson to take over management of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation facility, which had struggled to keep its doors open amid the chaos.

Since then, Jackson’s mission has been to provide a safe place for kids to be just that — kids. From the outside, the rec center – known locally as the “Mecca of Brownsville” – is an unconvincing place, surrounded by a plethora of austere housing projects and ramshackle auto repair shops. But inside, brightly lit fish tanks and lush green plants line the walls and spray-painted portraits of African-American luminaries like Rosa Parks and Nat King Cole greet members at every turn.

During the week, children and teenagers begin streaming onto the center’s basketball courts as soon as school lets out and many stay well into the night. There are pick-up games, organized tournaments and an instructional clinic on Saturday mornings. In the summer, college players home for vacation dazzle youngsters with their flashy moves and Sundays are reserved for the 40-and-over crowd.

For Darren Moore, a rail-thin 12-year-old who lives nearby, the Brownsville Recreation Center is more than just a place to shoot hoops. It is a second home. “I come here every day except Sunday,” said Moore, as he rolled up the sleeves of his oversized t-shirt to reveal long arms of sinew and muscle. The young player attempted a crossover dribble. “I’m practicing my Kobe moves,” he said.

And that is just as Jackson would have it. Like the rest of New York City, Brownsville has grown safer in recent decades, but the neighborhood still has one of the highest crime rates, and its residents live in fear of violence. In the first quarter of 2011, there were 23 shootings with 26 victims in Brownsville, half of whom were under the age of 25.

“I used to stay out practicing my jump shot in the parks ‘til two, three o’clock in the morning,” said Jackson. “Kids can’t do that nowadays — it’s too dangerous. Either a gang will jump you or the police will stop you.”

Greg "Jocko" Jackson stands on the rooftop of the Brownsville Recreation Center in Brooklyn. (Photo: Jesse Newman/The Brooklyn Ink)

Over the past decade, the center has evolved its own kind of gang, albeit one that is all-inclusive and binds members through mutual respect instead of fear. The center’s staff is fiercely loyal to Jackson – many say he is like a father to them – and young members are devoted to them in return.

Tony Deese was 13-years-old and headed for trouble when Jackson tracked him down on the streets of Brownsville in 1976 and accused him of stealing his bicycle. By the time Deese reported to Jackson the following day, the older man had arranged for his first summer job — as a youth worker at a vocational training school in Bushwick. Now, years later, Deese is a basketball coach at the rec center and his two teenage sons are both promising players.

“Jocko saved my life,” said Deese. “He took me away from the streets and gave me a community.”

It is not an unusual claim. Nor is the idea that long after street basketball’s heyday in the city, the game still plays an invaluable role in impoverished minority neighborhoods. According to Randy Millard, a Brownsville native and basketball coach at the center, “Without basketball, a lot of these kids would be in graveyards.”

Jackson’s dedication to the center stems in part from memories of his own boyhood in Brownsville. The teenager was on the verge of dropping – or failing – out of high school when then-basketball coach Edolphus Towns noticed his skills on the court. Towns, who now represents part of Brooklyn in the House of Representatives, took Jackson under his wing and sent him to live with his mother in North Carolina. Jackson quickly became a star player and team captain at West Columbus High School; when his grades improved he was awarded a scholarship to play basketball at nearby Guilford College.

It was with the Congressman’s benevolence in the back of his mind that Jackson returned to Brownsville after a single season in the NBA. In 1985, when he joined the staff at the rec center, the building was in desperate need of repair and residents were afraid to walk the neighborhood’s streets to get there. Then, in the early 1990s, the center underwent a $10 million renovation. Jackson removed the 6-inch Plexiglas barrier and turnstile that guarded the center’s entrance and asked an exterminator friend to kill the rats that lived in the weight room.

Today, the center is equipped with a fitness room, pool and newly painted basketball courts; instructors offer classes like yoga, karate, tae kwon do and jujitsu. And Jackson’s mottos – “Whom did you help today?” and “Pay it forward” – are repeated like mantras by the center’s staff.

But sports are only part of the point at the Brownsville Recreation Center. Baron Germaine, a coach at the center, pointed to a top basketball player. “That kid is gonna get an education” he said. “Basketball is just a ticket to the amusement park. We want them to keep their hoop dreams — it’s the carrot we wave in front of them to get 75s and 80s in class.”

Darryl Glenn, recreation supervisor at the center, concurred. “Sports may bring you to me,” said Glenn, “but once I’ve got you, it’s not about basketball, it’s about life

A group of boys wait their turn to play basketball at the Brownsville Recreation Center in Brooklyn in July. (Photo: Jesse Newman/The Brooklyn Ink)

Young people in Brownsville have seen enough of life to understand the choices they face. Twelve-year-old Delor Scarboro described how coming to the center has kept him away from the violence that pervades everyday life in his housing project.

If he weren’t at the center, said Scarboro, he would probably be caught up “in the mix” at home. Gang members at Brownsville Houses regularly recruit young children to do favors for them like carry guns and assist in assault or robbery, he said.

“Once these streets get a kid, they don’t spit him back out, they devour him,” said Germaine. “I tell my kids all the time, you can’t be a basketball player and a gangster at the same time. They just don’t mix.”

Karrie Scarboro, Delor’s mother, walks a group of children from Brownsville Houses to the center and back on Friday nights. “A lot of kids would be lost if we didn’t have this place,” Scarboro said.

The game on a recent Saturday was a family affair. Jackson’s son, Greg Jr., was the referee and two other sons, plus a daughter and his wife sat beside the 60-year-old manager in the bleachers. Three of his eight grandchildren were there. Throughout the game, spectators filtered in and out of the gym, each stopping to greet Jackson, shake hands, or say goodbye.

“I had to come back to Brownsville,” said Jackson, dressed in his signature Nike tracksuit and grey tweed cap. “This is my neighborhood. This is where I got it from. You get all your strength right here.”

Jackson held out his hands, revealing crooked fingers bent by arthritis. “Besides,” he said, “I can still shoot.”

National Night Out 2011

2011-08-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here is another post by our Summer Youth Intern Morgan Smith. Morgan attended the annual National Night Out event in Brownsville which was held at Dr. Richard Green Playground on Mother Gaston Blvd and Sutter Ave.

"On Tuesday, August 2nd, it was National Night Out at P.S./ I.S. 284 Park. It was really fun. The event had the Cotton Candy Machines, Ice Cream, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs and etc. There was a lot of people from Brownsville in attendance as well as people from outside of the neighborhood. Some kids played basketball. "

"It looked as if everyone had fun. The event staffers gave away bags with school supplies and other gifts. They also had face painting. My little sister went. When we got home, I asked her if she had fun? She responded with "it was one of the best things they have ever done in Brownsville."- Morgan

"Just Say No To Drugs" by Morgan Smith

2011-07-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

We all know how drugs plays a significant role in the Brownsville community. Morgan Smith, our Brownsville Partnership Guest Blogger for the Summer, talks about. Even though Morgan's blog post has so little words, the meaning is powerful.

"A lot of teens in the community use drugs. Some teens in the community use drugs to rebel towards their parents, while some teens use drugs to make them feel as if they're "grown". Maybe teens think that by them using drugs, it will make them "feel good" or have more more fun at a party. However, the truth is that, there are much better ways to do all of these things."- Morgan Smith

Morgan & Malika's Views: What We Know About Brownsville

2011-07-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Morgan Smith and Malika Spruill will be contributing to the Brownsville Partnership Blog this summer. Every Tuesday, Morgan and Malika will team up together up creating blog post about their experience working in Brownsville.

Malika Spruill is a resident of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She is 20 Years Old. This is her first time working in the Brownsville. She knows little to none about Brownsville. Malika's views about Brownsville may change.

Morgan Smith is a resident of Brownsville, Brooklyn. As a 15 Year Old young man growing up in Brownsville, he lets it be known that it is not easy living in Brownsville. Growing up in this "tough" environment is going to hopefully make him a better person.

"Brownsville is a big community filled with much positivity and negativity. There are ways to change the negatives into positives. One of the positive things about Brownsville is the Brownsville Partnership. Brownsville Partnership helps the Brownsville residents seek employment and get the youth off of the street. The Youth Market is one of things we do in the community. We sell fresh produce in the community to give people healthier ways of eating. Also we do programs and activities all over the community." - Morgan Smith

"There are many social problems in Brownsville. The problems are mainly associated with drugs and crime. Brownsville has a higher rate of dropouts and incidents of violence in their schools than any other neighborhood I know of. Another problem is low test scores and high truancy rates. This is what I know of about Brownsville because I really don't know much."- Malika Spurill

Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez, Mets alums to help Habitat for Humanity build housing later in July

2011-07-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, sitting in the Mets broadcast booth with Gary Cohen (c.), are joining with Habitat for Humanity to do their part in the local community.

(Courtesy of Howard Simmons of the NY Daily News)

Georgette Lee was nervous as she walked into the SNY booth at Citi Field Sunday to meet Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez. She knew who they were, of course, but Lee is not much of a baseball fan.

Lee had come to Citi Field to say thank you to two of the men who will help build her home.

Darling and Hernandez, along with some of their 1986 world champion teammates, will hammer and paint to help build the residences at St. John's Place in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn on July 15 with Habitat for Humanity. Lee will own one of those homes in 2012.

It is the third straight year that the Mets Alumni Association Presented by Citi, as part of the Mets and Citi's "Teammates in the Community" initiative, have helped Habitat for Humanity build affordable housing in the city.

While Lee was nervous, Darling gretted her, her 13-year-old son Zayyire and her sisters Delcenia and Virginia, who also are Habitat homeowners and neighbors.

"I live in Brooklyn, too," Darling said as he showed the family where he broadcasts Mets games.

Darling is particularly proud that across the generation of Mets players, they have lent a hand with the program in the city.

"My two boys and I went down to New Orleans and worked with Habitat there and it was such a wonderful bonding experience for us. I really think it's a great program," Darling said. "What's great about the Mets doing this here in the city is that so often people only think of the people in ravaged areas; sometimes it's the families in your neighborhood that need help, the family down the street."

Lee was grateful for that helping hand.

"Sometimes people reach a certain level and they don't remember where they've come from and go back to help," Lee said, her eyes welling with tears. "It's so nice that Ron and Keith and other Mets are going to come out and help us.

"I really want to thank them, and thank the Mets and Citi so much. It really means a lot to us."

Michael Rapaport moves behind the camera to chronicle hip-hop favorites A Tribe Called Quest

2011-07-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

If you was to ask Michael Rapaport where he was from, he would simply reply and might say "I am from Brownsville, Brooklyn." Read this article written by Jacob E. Osterhout as he talks about Michael Rapaport's role in his new documentary talking the break up of his favorite Hip Hop group, A Tribe Called Quest.

Michael Rapaport's 'Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest' just opened.

(Courtesy of Jacob E. Osterhout of the NY Daily News)

In a perfect world, Michael Rapaport would bike to Astoria every day to eat an overstuffed sandwich from Sal, Kris & Charlie's Deli.

But the world isn't perfect.

In fact, on this particularly sunny New York day, the 41-year-old actor — his films include and Woody Allen's "Mighty Aphrodite" and "Small Time Crooks" — has such a bad stomachache, he doesn't even bother to unwrap his sandwich.

Instead, he downs two ginger ales and stares longingly at his order — a sandwich full of five meats, three cheeses, four veggies, dressing, mustard and mayo, aptly named "The Bomb."

"I'm not hungry right now, but I promise you that by the end of the day that sandwich will be eaten," he says with a thick New York accent. "It's perfection. It would be criminal to let the best sandwich in this city go to waste."

Just as it would have been criminal to keep Rapaport's directorial debut, "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest," from being released on the big screen, which almost happened.

The film, which opened Friday, chronicles the 1998 breakup of one of Rapaport's favorite hip-hop groups, Queens-based A Tribe Called Quest. Despite the director's adoration of his subject, the leader of A Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip, refused to approve the film before its debut because of creative differences.

"It was brutal making this documentary," says Rapaport. "I wouldn't change it for anything but it took everything out of me. I always knew, though, that I was going to finish making the movie, and once we got accepted to Sundance, there was no stopping me from screening the film there, even if I had to do it out of the trunk of my car."

Rapaport learned this get-it-done-at-all-costs attitude and developed his love of hip hop growing up on the upper East Side during the '80s.

"I got kicked out of a lot of schools when I was a kid because I was so disruptive," he says. "All I cared about was basketball, girls, sleeping and hip hop. I would travel out to the Howard Projects in Brownsville to play ball with my best friend and I was exposed to things I never would have experienced on the East Side of Manhattan."

He would also venture downtown to check out the hip-hop shows, even as a teenager.

"I remember being in Latin Quarters, that club where Plaxico shot himself, and this guy next to me pulled a sword out of his jacket," says Rapaport. "So I decided to get out of there, but I had checked my coat. Big mistake. As I'm waiting for my coat, someone gets out of a car and fires four gunshots into the club. I dove into the corner and just curled up into the fetal position."

Eventually, Rapaport moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career, and his voice caught people's attention.

"Everyone would bring up my accent and I would get defensive," he says. "But I embraced it because that's what New Yorkers do. We say, 'f— you,' and keep talking like we talk."

Now a father of two, Rapaport is most uncomfortable when talking about his sons living in California.

"They think they're New Yorkers but they were born and raised in Los Angeles," he says. "But they understand the importance of New York City in their lives and they know what this place means to me."

But what exactly does New York mean to Rapaport?

He takes a last swig from his bottle of ginger ale and extends his arms.

"New York is about all sorts of regular people living together, like here in Astoria," he says. "Man, I miss walking around this city and just discovering the day as it goes along. Somewhere out in Queens or the Bronx or Brooklyn there's the next A Tribe Called Quest, who will represent New York the way they did.

"And, who knows? Maybe you'll be able to direct the documentary on them someday."

Tomorrow Brownsville Your Attendance Is Needed!!!

2011-06-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

For more information, contact Randy Millard at rmillard@commonground.com

Follow Brownsville Partnership on Twitter @bvillepartner

Thousands more NYC students need to take summer school to advance

2011-06-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

School in the Summer...

Read this article by Rachel Monahan who writes for New York Daily News.

A lot more kids need summer school this year, officials said yesterday.

This summer, 12,000 more city public school students than last year should hit the books harder, according to a Department of Education analysis.

In all, 34,069 students in third through eighth grades likely will be held back if they don't attend summer school.

"Before promoting any of these students to the next grade, we need to make sure they have mastered the skills needed to succeed," said city Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.

To be promoted, the city requires students to score a basic "Level 2" on state English and math exams.

Because the state exams are given in May, the city does not have the official results, but instead has projected which students have not met their standards.

City officials said they did not expect more students to fail the exam but had made a more accurate judgment of the need this year.

Last year, the city recommended 22,802 students for summer school, when in fact 31,000 bombed the standardized tests.

The summer term will cost the city almost $51 million - $4 million more than last year.

"It's good that more students will have the opportunity to improve. I think it's scary how many kids need to improve," said Advocates for Children Executive Director Kim Sweet.

Pitkin Ave BID Job Opening!!!

2011-06-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

IMMEDIATE JOB OPENING

The Pitkin Avenue BID is seeking a part time temporary employee to help with the planning of its Summer Plaza events. This is a terrific opportunity for a community resident who is seeking supplemental income.

For three Sundays in July, a section of Pitkin Avenue will be closed to car traffic for the Pitkin Summer Plazas. The BID needs a summer employee to assist in programming the space with events, arts and crafts, and recreational activities.

The position will be 20 hours per week Monday through Friday, beginning June 20, 2011 In July, the week will be Tuesday to Saturday because assistance at the Summer Plazas is required. Please note that this does not include July 4th Weekend! The position pays $12/hr.

With the Director’s supervision, job duties will include the following:

• Meet with event partners to discuss programming

• Work with merchants to develop event programming and sponsorship

• Develop promotional materials

• Promote the summer plazas online using Facebook, Blogger and email

• Assist in developing press materials

• Supervise volunteers and block captains during the event

• Assist in setting up for the event, including lifting tables and chairs

• Assist in breaking down the event, including clean up

• Assist the director as needed

Requirements:

Excellent communication skills

Computer skills, including MS Word, Excel, GoogleDocs, and Picasa.

Students interested in urban planning and economic development are strongly encouraged to apply. Send cover letter and resume to Dan Murphy at execdirector@pitkinbid.org

Are Healthy School Lunches Too Expensive For The American Economy?

2011-06-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

Obesity amongst our youth across the nation, is a tough topic to debate about. We want our kids to be healthy, but the cost maybe too expensive...

Read this article from The Associated Press

Let's enlighten each other

Washington, DC (June 1, 2011) -- House Republicans are pushing back against Obama administration efforts to promote healthier lunches, saying the Agriculture Department should rewrite rules it issued in January meant to make school meals healthier. They say the new rules are too costly.

The bill, approved by the House Appropriations Committee late Tuesday, also questions a government proposal to curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children and urges the Food and Drug Administration to limit rules requiring calorie counts be posted on menus.

The overall spending bill would cut billions from USDA and FDA budgets, including for domestic feeding programs and international food aid. The panel also cut some farm subsidies to cut spending.

Republicans are concerned about the cost of many of the Obama administration proposals, which they regard as overregulation, said Chris Crawford, a spokesman for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s agriculture subcommittee, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.

Crawford said the marketing guidelines, released last month, are “classic nanny-state overreach.” Though the guidelines, which would restrict which foods could be marketed to children, are voluntary, many companies are concerned that they will be penalized if they don’t follow them. The bill questions whether the Agriculture Department should spend money to be part of the marketing effort.

“Our concern is those voluntary guidelines are back-door regulation,” he said, deploring the fact that kids can watch shows that depict sex and drugs on MTV, but “you cannot see an advertisement for Tony the Tiger during the commercial break.”

The school lunch guidelines are the first major nutritional overhaul of students’ meals in 15 years. Under the guidelines, schools would have to cut sodium in subsidized meals by more than half, use more whole grains and serve low-fat milk. They also would limit kids to only one cup of starchy vegetables a week, so schools couldn’t offer french fries every day.

The starchy vegetable proposal has been criticized by conservatives who think it goes too far and members of Congress who represent potato-growers. They say potatoes are a low-cost food that provides fiber and other nutrients.

The Republican spending bill also encourages the FDA to limit new guidelines that require calories to be posted on menus to restaurants, asking that grocery stores, convenience stores and other places whose primary purpose is not to sell food be excluded from the rules.

The effort would dial back many of first lady Michelle Obama’s priorities in her “Let’s Move” campaign to curb childhood obesity and hunger.

“This shows a very clear trend in trying to undermine some of the important gains in nutrition policy,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The overall spending bill would cut billions from USDA and FDA budgets, including for domestic feeding programs and international food aid. Even after some of the money was restored Tuesday, the bill would still cut about $650 million â€“ or 10 percent â€“ from the Women, Infants and Children program that feeds and educates mothers and their children. It would cut almost 12 percent of the Food and Drug Administration’s $2.5 billion budget, straining the agency’s efforts to implement a new food safety law signed by the president early this year.

Bobkatz BikeRoll

2011-06-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, May 28th, 2011, Brownsville Partnership and the Brownsville Bobkatz put their bicycles in motion as they trekked around the Brownsville community for the Bobkatz BikeRoll. 30 kids from the Brownsville Bobkatz and other teams in the community, Brownsville Partnership, Brownsville Recreation Center Staff along with volunteers from local community organizations rode throughout the neighborhood. After the Bike ride, the kids had the chance to indulge in some healthy barbecue food.

Here are some pictures:

(The Bikers getting ready to ride throughout the Brownsville streets)

(Grilled Turkey Hot Dogs)

(Brownsville Partnership Staff: L to R- Alicka Ampry-Samuel, Brian Goldblatt (GrowNYC), Nupur Chaudhury & Greg "Jocko" Jackson)

For more photos from the Bobkatz BikeRoll check out the slideshow!

Terror in Brownsville: Survey finds Brooklyn neighborhood grappling with "serious issues" like guns

2011-06-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy of NY Daily News)

Brownsville resident James Kinard, 50, worries about crime in his neighborhood.

Brownsville is a neighborhood filled with unique individuals. Our qualities and our characteristics genetically bonds us to become a rare breed in society. Center for Court Innovation volunteers last fall, conducted a survey about what are the "serious issues" in Brownsville. Jake Pearson and Al Barbarino complied the results into a great article. This is a must read!!!!

Guns. Gangs. Drug use. Drug selling. Assaults.

A whopping 80% of Brownsville residents say these are the biggest problems plaguing their community, according to a new survey.

Volunteers from the Center for Court Innovation spent weeks last fall asking more than 800 Brownsville residents questions about their neighborhood - and this month released the troubling results.

"This survey paints a portrait of a neighborhood with some serious problems," said Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation. "There are social problems and public safety problems...and it's a neighborhood grappling with some serious issues."

Many of those "serious issues" can be deadly.

More than 70% of residents said guns were a big problem in the neighborhood - a neighborhood which has seen 11 murders so far this year, up from six at this time last year, according to 73rd Precinct police stats.

"It's scary - I don't walk around the streets, I don't sit around the park [because] if I'm sitting there I might get hit by a bullet," said Jessie Reed, 62, who has lived in the Brownsville Houses for the past 10 years.
"Once I'm home and inside, I stay there, that's it."

Reed is not alone - only 37% of female residents said they felt safe on the street, walking to and from the subway and in the parks.

Experts said that even though crime has gone down in Brownsville in the past decade, it is still high compared with the rest of the city - and that especially violent crime brings fear to the entire community, not just the victims.

"Just imagine living in a neighborhood where the biggest issue people face is the presence of guns," said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City.

"Anything that sends the message that there's disorder, that the government's not in control, can create fear," he added. "If there's a sense of hopelessness because there's high unemployment or the government's not meeting the needs of kids, that can mean disorder."

Unlike some Brooklyn neighborhoods that have shaken their violent reputations in recent years, experts said Brownsville - which has long suffered from a lack of city services, high crime and unemployment - will take longer.
"
All the things people take for granted in other neighborhoods we don't take for granted," said Greg Jackson, 59, executive director of the Brownsville Partnership, a community group.
"
We had the worst cops at one time, the worst teachers at one time, the worst hospitals...and we still got problems, but now people of my generation think that things are going great because they saw it when it was really bad."

Brooklyn Salons get training, medical devices to help clients stay well

2011-05-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

Read this article written by Jake Pearson for the New York Daily News. Jake Pearson goes into a Beauty Salon... but he comes out with something better than gossip!

Check this out!

(Courtesy of Robert Mecca)

Samantha Brown (c.), owner of Women's Hair Care Center in Crown Heights, works on hair of Raicine Terry as stylist Modestina Bell looks on.

For women, the hair salon has long been an intimate place for private conversations, gossip and advice between stylists and clients.

From neighborhood news to Arnold Schwarzenegger's secret family, no topic is off-limits - and in some Brooklyn neighborhoods, obesity, diabetes are now on the list of sacred topics.

Trained by public health experts last month, 16 salon owners in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and East Flatbush have begun slipping health advice into conversation with their customers - suggesting healthy meals, exercise routines and doctor visits.

"No I don't need the scale, I've never used it," said city worker Alison Fulford, 43, after Crown Heights salon owner Samantha Brown mentioned there was a scale in the bathroom as Fulford got her hair pressed and dried last week.

The scale, a blood pressure machine, and DVDs with exercise routines, healthy food options and weight-loss tips have also been supplied to the salons.

"I don't mind them suggesting it because my stylist knows what I want; she's like a teacher talking to a student," said Fulford, a glass dryer covering her head at Women's Hair Care Center Inc. on Nostrand Ave. "I just don't want to do it today."

Brown then tried pressing client Jessica Edwards to try out the blood pressure machine.

"I probably don't eat as well as I could," conceded Edwards, 20, as she got her hair shampooed and pressed by Brown. "Some of my family members have diabetes, so it's important to me."

Public health officials from the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health enlisted Brown to turn her salon into a mini-doctor's office and her stylists into substitute M.D.s.

Earlier this year, officials at the Brooklyn public health group won a $190,000 grant to use hair stylists throughout central Brooklyn to talk about healthy living.

For the next year, the experts will track more than 1,000 women of African and Caribbean descent who use the salons to see if they change their habits.

"In our neighborhood, most women are not as educated about health stuff as they are in other neighborhoods," said Brown, who has owned the salon for 14 years. "We don't eat the foods we're supposed to eat, and we don't exercise enough."

Officials from Arthur Ashe come by from time to time to give seminars and demonstrate how to prepare healthy meals like vegetable stir fry.

"What we're looking for are changes in behavior," said John Lewter, director of development at Arthur Ashe. "How many people start saying, 'I've actually stopped eating red meat' or 'I joined a walking club'?"

Women's Hair Care receptionist Modestina Bell said she regularly hears clients complain about their blood pressure as they sit in the store's big green barber chairs.

"As a stylist, we get people ready for graduations and weddings, so even though we're not in the family, we're part of the family," said Bell, 22.

"So we give them the information and advice ... a lot of people will talk about their blood pressure being too high, then the stylist will say, 'Maybe you should cut out so much salt.'

You aren't a doctor," said Bell, "but it's the best you can do."

What kind of shape their customers are in

The latest city data shows people Central Brooklyn have long suffered from health problems related to heart disease.

High blood pressure:

27.3% of residents in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights say they suffer from it.

40.2% of residents in Flatbush say they have it.

Diabetes:

10.6% of residents in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights say they suffer from it.

13.3% of residents in Flatbush say they suffer from it.

Obesity:

26.9% of residents in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights say they are obese (36.6% say they are overweight but not obese).

29.8% of residents in Flatbush say they are obese (39.7% say they are overweight but not obese).

Physical activity in past 30 days:

29.9% of residents in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights said they have had no physical activity.

29.6% of residents in Flatbush had none.

Source: 2009 Department of Health Community Health Survey

Photo exhibit at Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal fosters hope for 50 beautiful kids looking for homes

2011-05-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy of Mark Bonifacio of the New York Daily News)

Photographer Rayon Richards with foster child William, at 'Heart Gallery' exhibit now on at Atlantic Terminal.

Photographer Rayon Richards has a good heart! He help facilitate a photo shoot, along with HeartShare Human Services, for Foster Child who are looking to be placed in a home. The "Heart Gallery" is at Alantic Terminal in Downtown Brooklyn. Read this article written by Erin Durkin of the New York Daily News.

Check this out!

For the next month, commuters passing through downtown Brooklyn's busy Atlantic Terminal will be greeted by the smiling faces of 50 foster kids searching for permanent homes.

Life-sized portraits of the kids taken by renowned photographers were unveiled yesterday as part of a "Heart Gallery" on display in hopes of enticing potential parents.

Malik, 14, moved into his latest foster home in Canarsie a week ago - his sixth since he was taken away from his parents at age 6 after they left him home alone for weeks, he said.

"I never found the right place," said Malik, an eighth-grader who has had to change schools four times while being shifted among foster homes all over the city. "I don't feel like a normal teenager.

"I'm hoping to find a nice family," Malik said. "I never felt loved by a parent before."

Eight-year-old William squealed with delight when he saw his portrait hung front and center at the exhibit.

"That's me!" said William, who is autistic and lives with a foster family in Boerum Hill. "I like my picture...[I'd] like to find [a] family to adopt me."

(Courtesy of Mark Bonifacio of the New York Daily News)

Foster child Khadija revels in seeing her images at exhibit, organized by HeartShare Human Services.

William has bounced around between foster homes since he was a baby, said Patricia McCollin of HeartShare Human Services, and finding a permanent home is a particular challenge because of his special needs.

"You see how lovable he is. You see how infectious he is," she said. "He needs someone who's going to be open and patient and willing to learn."

The nonprofit sought out famed photographers to shoot the spirited portraits, which will be on display through June 15.

Deborah Feingold - whose past subjects include Mick Jagger, Alicia Keys and President Obama for the cover of his book "The Audacity of Hope" - did the portraits of Malik and 4-year-old Khadija.

"We all want them to find a home," Feingold said. "This was a way of using the camera to try to do something that would hopefully make an impact on someone's life."

Heart Gallery NYC executive director Laurie Sherman Graff, herself the adoptive mom of a 13-year-old son, said that even people who have thought about adoption don't consider the fact that they could adopt an older child from foster care.

Heart Gallery officials hope the photographs hanging in Atlantic Terminal will serve as a constant reminder of that.

"People can't help but look," she said.

Brooklyn's dad fighting back after losing his son to gun violence

2011-05-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

The gun violence in the Brownsville community is effecting the residents terribly. Some of our residents are scared to come outside in fear being accidental hit by a stray bullet. Read this article wriiten by Erin Durkin of the New York Daily News. Mike Tucker of Bedford Stuyvesant lost his Stephonne Crawford in 2005. He wants to share his story with the world now.

Check this out!

(Courtesy of New York Daily News)

Mike Tucker holds a photo of his son, Stephonne Crawford, who was shot in 2005

Bedford-Stuyvesant dad Mike Tucker's son was fatally shot by police nearly six years ago - and now he's dedicating his life to fighting Brooklyn's plague of gun violence.

Tucker's son, Stephonne Crawford, 21, was accidentally shot in East New York in a 2005 scuffle with cops who were trying to question him about a separate shooting. He was killed instantly when a detective's gun discharged, police said at the time.

"The gun accidentally went off and shot him in the back of the head," said Tucker, 45, adding that Stephonne, who had a 1-year-old son, had fallen in with the wrong crowd but was trying to turn his life around. "I was really shocked and devastated."

Tucker has channelled his grief into a passion for stemming gun violence, founding a small nonprofit called Lay the Guns Down.

He's enlisted local celebrities like New York Giants football players Justin Tuck and Domenik Hixon to film public service radio and TV spots urging young people to give up the guns.

"I decided enough was enough," Tucker said. "Where I come from in Brooklyn, I got fed up with people being used to gun violence and people being shot dead in the street.

"We need to treat this [gun violence epidemic] like AIDS," he said. "We need to treat it like cancer."

Tucker is looking to raise $10,000 to film more ads that will feature everyone from rappers to elected officials, and air them on TV. He's holding a fund-raiser today at the Applebee's Restaurant in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Applebee's will donate 10% of the proceeds from the meals of diners who come in with a Lay the Guns Down flyer to Tucker's nonprofit.

Tucker is also working with local musicians to put together an album of songs about violence.

He concedes he's fighting an uphill battle, but draws on his son's memory for inspiration.

"We know that it's not going to stop overnight," he said. "If I can save one life a year, I'm doing my job. It keeps me going knowing that he's looking down on me and seeing that I'm not letting him be forgotten."

Teachers' Union Sues to Stop School Closings

2011-05-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

P.S. 332, Charles H. Houston in our neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn is one of the schools in New York City that is on the verge of being closed down. Check out this article on the New York Times website written by Fernanda Santos. Let's Save Our Schools!!!

(Courtesy of George M. Gutierrez for the New York Times)

John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx, one of the schools that a lawsuit filed Wednesday hopes to keep open.

The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in an effort to halt two tools the city’s Education Department uses to change the school system: closing schools for poor performance and giving charter schools space in buildings occupied by traditional public schools.

The litigation, filed in State Supreme Court, escalates the tensions in the fraying relationship between the city and the teachers’ union, whose members have worked without a contract for more than a year and now face the likelihood of 4,100 layoffs, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed as a way to balance the budget.

It also threatens to upend the coming school year for the thousands of students who have secured a spot in charter schools whose locations are being challenged and in new high schools that are set to replace closing schools.

The lawsuit challenges the city’s plans to shut 22 schools, including 15 that were part of similar litigation last year by the union and the N.A.A.C.P., also a plaintiff in the current legal action. It also accuses the city of fostering an unequal system, where charter-school students get preferential use of the buildings’ common spaces, like auditoriums, cafeterias and gyms.

“We cannot continue with policies that allow inequality not only to exist, but to flourish” in the schools, Michael Mulgrew, the president of the teachers’ union, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The accusations drew a strong rebuke from Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, who said the litigation was about “protecting jobs for adults at the expense of what is best for our children” and described it as an effort to “keep failing schools in our midst.”

“Today, to me, is just a sad day for the New York City schools system,” Mr. Walcott told reporters at his own news conference.

Closing failing schools is always controversial, but New York’s strategy of placing charters alongside traditional schools in public buildings — partly as an antidote to the cost and scarcity of real estate and partly as a way to fully embrace the notion of school choice — has elicited particular outrage in neighborhood after neighborhood.

The lawsuit contends that the Education Department has not followed a state law enacted last May that requires it to specify how the schools should share the space, relative to the size of their student bodies. For example, in Canarsie, Brooklyn, the suit says that students at Public School 114 and those at Explore Charter School have had nearly equal time at the building’s gym each day, even though Explore has about one-third of the students that P.S. 114 does. The suit describes a similar situation in a building in the South Bronx: P.S. 30 has nearly twice as many students as Bronx Success Academy, a charter, but the schools get equal time in the gym.

Regarding school closings, the lawsuit charges that the city ignored an agreement reached based on last year’s litigation to help the schools it was then trying to close by offering them additional staff and services, primarily for special education and immigrant students. Mr. Mulgrew offered some examples, among them the request for more social workers to handle the large number of homeless students at P.S. 332 in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

At Jamaica High School in Queens, “there were no smart boards, just broken blackboards,” he said, referring to the lack of basic resources that the lawsuit says hampered many of the schools’ efforts to improve.

The city countered with statistics that describe the schools in the lawsuit as well below average — compared with other schools that have been identified for closing and with schools citywide.

The elementary and middle schools included in the litigation had a 16 percent proficiency rate in English in the last school year, while the citywide average was 42 percent. Among the high schools, the graduation rate was 49 percent, compared with an average of 63 percent citywide.

Below are the schools slated for closing that have been named in the lawsuit:

* Middle School 571, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

* Bronx Academy High School, Soundview, the Bronx

Intermediate School 195 Roberto Clemente, Harlem

John F. Kennedy High School, Riverdale, the Bronx

Pacific High School, Downtown Brooklyn

Performance Conservatory High School, Morrisania, the Bronx

Public School 102, Joseph O. Loretan School for Creative Arts, Parkchester, the Bronx

Academy for Collaborative Education, Harlem

Academy for Environmental Science Secondary High School, East Harlem

Beach Channel High School, Beach Channel, Brooklyn

Christopher Columbus High School, Pelham Parkway, the Bronx

Frederick Douglass Academy III (middle school grades), Harlem

Global Enterprise High School, Pelham Parkway, the Bronx

Jamaica High School, Jamaica, Queens

Kappa II, East Harlem

Metropolitan Corporate Academy, Downtown Brooklyn

Monroe Academy for Business and Law, Soundview, the Bronx

New Day Academy, Morrisania, the Bronx

Norman Thomas High School, East Side, Manhattan

Paul Robeson High School, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

P.S. 332, Charles H. Houston, Brownsville, Brooklyn

School for Community Research and Learning, Soundview, the Bronx

Six Miles Wasn't Enough!

2011-05-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, May 15th, 2011, Brownsville Partnership Staff, Kyle Mushkin, Michelle Strong, Randy Millard, Shawn Brooks and his lovely Mrs. Brooks and lastly Kristen Woods participated in the 26th Annual AIDS Walk in Central Park.

The atmosphere was great! Brownsville Partnership Staff completed the Six Mile Walk! Despite the mud, the hard rain and bugs, the tough terrain in Central Park did not slow them down at all!

Check out some of the pictures!

Good Job Guys!

With correction-officer mom by his side, Bed-Stuy's Jaiquwan Jarrett gets ready for the NFL Draft

2011-04-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

Mo' Better Jaguars Football league in Brownsville are doing some big things if you didn't know! This Football program has put many of kids in College through the game of Football. Read this article about Jaiquwan Jarrett written by Mitch Abramson talking about his transition from Fort Hamilton High School to Temple University to becoming a Professional Football Player in the NFL coming from Bed-Stuy!

PHILADELPHIA - The big hit took place in South Philadelphia.

In a game against UConn on Sept. 18, Temple's Jaiquawn Jarrett, a 6-foot, 200-pounder, ran toward the sideline and crashed into Husky running back Jordan Todman, lowering his shoulder and blasting Todman several feet backward. It was the type of collision that leaves both players spinning, but Jarrett, a safety from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, rose to his feet quickly and nodded his head in approval, fully enjoying the results of his work. Sitting in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field that day was Jarrett's mother, Audrey Young.

"That's my son!" she likes to belt out to anyone within earshot, in case the No. 5 jersey bearing the words "Jarrett's Mother" on her back doesn't convey the message.

She has always been there for her son, raising him, along with his three siblings, as a single mother, playing the role of caretaker, breadwinner, cheerleader, and when she had to be, law enforcer, keeping her kids in line. That last attribute - the disciplinarian - may have been the easiest role for her to adapt.

For the past 21 years, Young has worked as a corrections officer at Rikers Island, guarding an all-male population of murderers, rapists and drug dealers awaiting sentencing. Jeff Legree, Jarrett's stepfather who coached him in youth football, knows for sure where Jarrett gets his toughness and spunk.

"He gets it from his mother," Legree says, who married Young in 2007, with a chuckle.
Jarrett, who won back-to-back city championships for Fort Hamilton High School from 2005-2007, is poised to become one of the first safeties taken in this month's NFL draft. Depending on who you speak to, Jarrett could be selected anywhere between the third and fifth rounds, possibly by the Jets or Giants, since both teams have worked him out. While there are more well-known players from bigger programs in the draft, it's unlikely they have a resume that matches Jarrett's, or a tough-as-nails mother who raised four children on her own.

"This is the greatest story for New York area kids because (colleges) don't recruit our football boys," says former Fort Hamilton coach Vinny Laino, who retired after the 2009-2010 season. "You want to talk about a kid who fell through the cracks? That's Jaiquawn."

Jarrett, who led Temple in tackles his senior season with 74, didn't receive a single Division I scholarship offer as a high school senior until a player flunked off Temple. He won the starting free safety position as a freshman and wound up a two-time first-team All-MAC selection for the Owls. Now, he's on the radar of a number of NFL teams. Jarrett credits his mom for keeping him on the straight and narrow. Brandon Reddish, a Syracuse-bound senior at Fort Hamilton, calls Jarrett an "inspiration" while several high school coaches in the area view him as a role model for other city kids with professional aspirations. Just four players from the five boroughs appeared on 2010 NFL Week 1 rosters, and Jarrett, all the way from the Mo' Better Jaguars youth football league in Brownsville, is ready to join that select company.

To read the complete article click here: With correction-officer mom by his side, Bed-Stuy's Jaiquwan Jarrett gets ready for the NFL Draft

Community Planning Partner Survey #2

2011-03-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Our Community Planning Partners, Karrie Scarboro and Randy Millard along with Jacqueline Kennedy have created Community Planning Partner Survey #2. Our Community Planning Partners are in Phase II of their Community Planning Process for the Brownsville Partnership. Phase II entails that our Community Planning Partners will engage the community in a discussion on more specific views. The Brownsville residents will be asked what parks, buildings, streets and commercial areas they like and dislike, and why.

Here are the questions:

Where are areas in the community that are considered unsafe and undesirable?
Name locations in the community that are very important to the community but are underutilized and poorly maintained.
What do you like/dislike about the local shopping/commercial areas in Brownsville? (i.e. Pitkin Ave, Belmont Ave., Rockaway Ave and Livonia Ave)
What are some intersections and streets that can be enhanced or better guarded for pedestrians and children? And How? (i.e. Speed bumps, bike lanes)
What parks in Brownsville do you think need the most work?
How can we put usage to vacant spaces and abandoned structures in Brownsville?

You can contact Karrie Scarboro via phone (347) 654-0519 (Cell) or E-mail kscarboro@commonground.org or Randy Millard via phone (347) 314-0306 or E-mail rmillard@commonground.org

#HOPEISINSIDE

New Book: School Resegregation Is Detrimental To Black Students

2011-03-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

Another interesting article from BlackNews.com...

Nationwide (March 14, 2011) -- A new book, Schooling Poor Minority Children: New Segregation in the Post-Brown Era, authored by Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., chronicles the process of desegregation to a return to post-Brown resegregated schools. The author describes this "new" segregation as a "redesign of pre-Brown segregation" and details the devastating impact upon poor minority students.

The return to segregated neighborhood schools, most often populated by poor black and brown students, unequally funded, and labeled "low performing" or "failing" should be taken very by seriously by the black community. The "new" segregation that has evolved in the post-Brown era is even more insidious than that of pre-Brown segregation. The deeply rooted problems that plagued pre-Brown segregated schools persist; while a new set of problems inherent in the "new" segregation have emerged. The "new" post-Brown segregation is creating a class of chronically undereducated students who will be left with only underclass options.

The author examines two crucial school-related factors characteristic of post-Brown segregated, low performing schools serving predominately poor minority populations: first, a school culture that is characterized by low expectations for students and the lack of a collective responsibility for student learning; and secondly, a stigmatizing school climate that focuses on control of students rather than creating rigorous and challenging learning environments. The combination of these factors results in the failure of these students to develop an academic identity, a lack of achievement motivation, the development of low self-expectations, disengagement from the learning process, academic failure, and in far too many instances non-completion.

This is a critical period in the future education of black children. As solutions are being proposed to close the achievement gap, none address the destructive effects of resegregation and the stigmatizing environments in which poor black and brown children are forced to learn. It is imperative that black parents and the black community become involved in all discussions about educational reform. The author suggests that the black community must re-commit itself to the education of black children, exercising the same fervor as during the initial stages of desegregation. She recommends that we must engage in yet another crusade, a "fourth crusade" to ensure equal educational opportunities for our children.

Dr. Bireda has been an educational consultant for twenty years specializing in racial disparity in achievement and discipline. Schooling Poor Minority Children: New Segregation in the Post-Brown Era and a previous book related to racial disparity in discipline, Cultures in Conflict: Eliminating Racial Profiling are available from www.rowmaneducation.com or Amazon.com.

Reboundsville: New home construction gives Brooklyn's Brownsville a facelift

2011-03-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this article written by Lynne Miller of NY Daily News as she explains and explores the new home construction in our Brownsville Community. The photos are courtesy of Jeff Bachner. To read the article on the NY Daily News website, here is the link Reboundsville: New home construction gives Brooklyn's Brownsville a facelift

Walk around gritty Brownsville, in northeastern Brooklyn, and you see new apartment buildings and other multifamily homes mixed in with older row houses, including some that are nearly 100 years old. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) helped cause this mini-building boom. Since 2003, HPD, working with developers, has financed the construction or rehabilitation of 3,871 units of affordable housing.

Under Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, more than 110,000 affordable housing units, financed by HPD, have pumped new life into city neighborhoods, including more than 27,000 in Brooklyn.
“You could call us an urban renewal agency,” says Jack Hammer, director of Brooklyn planning for the HPD.

One of the HPD’s newest projects, the $15.2 million River Rock development on Riverdale Ave. in Brownsville, features 54 rental apartments for low-income families, with 11 apartments for formerly homeless people. On the ground floor, 12,000 square feet have been set aside for retail with space for a local agency that provides social services to residents. On the second floor, there’s a laundry, a community room and terrace. There’s also underground parking.

Fillmore’s Lisa James inside a new two-family home on Tapscott St. (Jeff Bachner)

If he could change one thing, developer Joseph Norton would have made River Rock bigger. His company, GuyTech Management Services, gets plenty of calls from people looking for inexpensive apartments, so he knows better than most how much the neighborhood needs affordable housing. River Rock has no vacancies. Norton, who runs GuyTech with his brothers, sisters and children, from an office in the neighborhood, gets a sense of satisfaction every time he looks at the building.

“We didn’t want River Rock to look like, quote unquote, public housing,” Norton says. It doesn’t. River Rock’s brick-and-stucco facade is not marred by air conditioners sticking out of windows. The apartments have combination heating and cooling units as well as pale bamboo floors, walk-in closets and open kitchens with oak cabinets.

These affordable developments do more than help the people who live in them. They help the community.
“It’s enhanced the economic base of the neighborhood,” Hammer says.

In 1979, when he started at the HPD as a planner for the Brownsville and Ocean Hill areas, the neighborhood was considered a disaster area. Many property owners, behind on their tax payments, had abandoned buildings. Some had tenants, some were vacant, many were decrepit. The city acquired the homes through tax foreclosures.

The neighborhood today bears little resemblance to the old Brownsville. Hammer believes the newcomers have helped make it a better place to live.
“You have new families, people interested in not only living in the area but wanting to see stability,” Hammer says.

From Brownsville, residents can get to lower Manhattan by subway in about 35 minutes. Brownsville borders East New York to the east, Canarsie to the south, Crown Heights to the west, and Bedford-Stuyvesant to the north.

Among the city’s poorest neighborhoods, Brownsville and Ocean Hill are home to 17 New York City Housing Authority developments.

Stone Ave. library, built in 1914 as the world’s first public library devoted to children. (Joe Marino)

When Khalid Henriques was growing up in Ocean Hill in the 1980s, getting robbed and threatened at knife point on the streets was common. Subway stations were so dangerous he avoided them. Today, train stations are safer and in better condition. Street lighting has improved. New apartment buildings have replaced garbage-strewn lots.

Brownsville “is still rough, but it’s definitely improved,” says Henriques, 31. “It’s better than 20 years ago when it was wild and crazy.”

Compared with 1993, the area has seen a 66% decrease in the major crime categories, according to Police Department statistics for the 73rd Precinct.

For decades, African-Americans and Latinos have called the neighborhood home. Lately, Henriques has noticed immigrants from Bangladesh, China and Nigeria moving into the area.

The neighborhood also attracts many investors. Local real estate agents said one- and two-family homes fetch from $200,000 to $350,000, while three-family homes sell for $400,000. Many neighborhood homes are being marketed as short sales, where the seller sells a home for less than what’s owed on the mortgage and the bank takes a loss.

Real estate agent Lisa James, who grew up in Brownsville, sees first-time homebuyers priced out of Bedford-Stuyvesant checking out the neighborhood. Under contract, a new two-family house James is marketing on Tapscott St. priced at $459,000, offers sunny rooms with hardwood floors, backyard and finished basement.

“People walk into this house and say, Wow, a master bathroom, lovely floors, a deck, an island in the kitchen!” says James, an agent with Fillmore Real Estate.

Steps away, Pitkin Ave. is a bustling commercial strip offering discount clothing stores, barber shops, dry cleaners, beauty supply and optical shops, as well as national chains Lane Bryant, GameStop and Ashley Stewart. Standing tall among the low-rise stores, the old Loews Pitkin theater is a stunning reminder of Brownsville’s past. Built in the early 20th century, the long-vacant theater is going to get a new life as a charter school with space for shops.

Other commercial corridors are struggling. The neighborhood retail scene leaves room for improvement, says Viola D. Greene-Walker, district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 16.
“We have more than our share of 99 cent stores,” she says. “We need a better mix of stores. Residents who have cars shop outside the neighborhood.”

Neighborhood streets, though, are peaceful on a Monday afternoon. Residents sweep leaves from their sidewalks on Pleasant Place off Atlantic Ave. Signs along the residential blocks remind people to dump their trash in garbage cans and clean up after their dogs.

Anyone who knows the area’s history can appreciate the relative tranquility.

“I came to Brownsville in 1971, so I’ve seen quite a transition,” says Greene-Walker, who moved out in the mid-1980s but still works there. “We’re elated by the renaissance in the community.”

Greg Donaldson's book 'Zebratown' traces transformation of ex-Brownsville thug Kevin Davis

2011-03-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Read this article about Kevin Davis who was featured in a book title "Zebratown" written by Greg Donaldson who also wrote "The Ville". The article is written by Jake Pearson of NY Daily News.
Check it out!!!

Here is the link for the article Greg Donaldson's book "Zebratown" traces transformation of ex-Brownsville thug Kevin Davis

Author Greg Donaldson inadvertently sent a then-wanted Kevin Davis to prison after a photo of the young criminal appeared on the cover of his highly successful 1994 book, "The Ville."

Since then, the former thug from Brownsville and the John Jay College professor have formed an unlikely, decade-long friendship.

The result is "Zebratown," Donaldson's newest book, which chronicles Davis' struggle to stay clear of street life after nearly 10 years in prison.

"Now I look at Greg like family," said Davis, 42, who spent almost a decade in prison for gun, drug and assault convictions. "One thing about this book is it's all real - you just watch a person's life unfold."

For Donaldson, the book was as much about Davis' life as it was for the thousands of Brooklyn men who have crossed paths with the criminal justice system.

"In Brownsville, everyone does a lot of acting - who can be the most tough, who will back down," Donaldson said. "I wanted to take the toughest guy of the tough in Brownsville and see if he ... could adapt to a world outside prison."

Donaldson followed the former boxer, who grew up in the Brownsville Houses, to upstate Elmira, where Davis tried to avoid brushes with the law and settled in with a white woman in an interracial neighborhood dubbed Zebratown by the locals.

"Sometimes I'd say, 'Greg, don't put this in the book, or don't put that in there,'" said Davis, who now works as a welder in a metal factory. "But we had a relationship. ... I knew he'd remember everything."

In the book, Davis' transition isn't always smooth. He's approached by hoodlums to be part of a drug crew, he gets attacked in a barroom brawl and he sees close friends go back to jail.

But Davis was determined to stay clear of a return to jail - which would have meant a life sentence since he'd already had two felony arrests.

Donaldson followed Davis around for six years, and then took another two to research and write the 270-page book, which was published last summer.

"Sometimes it was uncomfortable," said Donaldson, who observed family arguments and even accompanied Davis and his pregnant girlfriend, Karen Tanski, to the doctor's office.

"Zebratown" is nothing like Donaldson's first hit, "The Ville," which followed the lives of a student from Thomas Jefferson High School and a housing cop who were able to survive the streets.

"It's not an underdog story; it's a mix of good and not so good things - like all of us," said Donaldson. "It's complicated."

Motorcycle, SUV enthusiats help Flatbush, Brooklyn fire victims

2011-03-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

Check out the great work done by the all-women Auto Club Outer Order and other SUV and Auto Clubs for the fire victims of Flatbush, Brooklyn. The event was done at the Brownsville Recreation Center yesterday afternoon. The article is written by Simone Weichselbaum of NY Daily News.

(Dozens were left homeless following deadly fire in Flatbush, Brooklyn.)

Dozens of motorcycle and SUV enthusiasts donated a mountain of clothes, toys, books and food Sunday to the homeless families left with nothing after surviving the Flatbush apartment building blaze.

Mounds of secondhand wardrobes were piled up to the ceiling on a stage inside the Brownsville Recreation Center on Linden Blvd. Center doors will stay open all week for the displaced E. 29th St. residents, organizers said.

"I don't know where to start," sobbed single mother Allona Bristol, 35, as she sifted through a mountain of shirts. Bristol and her twin 18-year-old daughters escaped the Feb. 19 fire, started by a voodoo ceremony gone wrong inside a fourth-floor apartment.

"I lost everything. All the memories of my kids are gone," Bristol cried.

Rhyan Rothwell, 32, a Queens NYPD officer and member of the all-women's SUV club Outer Order, put out the call to help after reading survivors' heartbreaking tales in the Daily News.

"I was a fire victim when I was 9 in Washington, D.C. We moved to Brooklyn to live with my grandmother. I became a New Yorker because of a fire. We have to help each other," Rothwell said.

"Abortion Is Black Genocide" by Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr.

2011-03-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

Nationwide (February 24, 2011) -- Writing in "Right to Life News", a beautiful document about our right to life, the Rev. Jesse Jackson asked an amazingly salient question which shouts across the decades:

"What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?"

"It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."

That was January 1977. It is now 34 years later and we emphatically need to examine the profoundness of Jackson's comment, for this is one of the most incredible insights given to America four years after the launch of the systemic eugenics plan--Roe vs. Wade-- in the words of sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, mimicking Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, when she said, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." Concern about population growth...? Too many of whom...?

Yes, by design, Abortion was to be seductively proposed to the African-American community to reduce their numbers by ripping children apart within the womb. This plot would not only decimate the African-American community, it would also expedite the depletion of our national conscience. What most America thought then to be radical rhetoric coming from Black America's most popular spokesperson, has in this day become a sociological fact which can be empirically proven. After years of futility, much like Egypt's frustration with Israel in the book of Genesis--the more they afflicted them the more they increased--Abortion has become the "silver bullet" for the imbedded eugenic influence in our nation and the world. Nationally 1,786 African-Americans are killed each day by Abortion, and in New York City, for every 1,000 precious African-Americans born, sadly 1,525 are mutilated to death within the womb.

The 2006 Census report tells us African-American birth rates are beneath the replacement rate at 1.97. You need 2.1 to replace the existing population. There you have it: Genocide. If you were trying to reach the Mormons you would not set up in Harlem would you? Over 78% of the Abortion industry's Death Camps are set up in minority neighborhoods. There is more but I would like to look at this prophetic insight given in 1977 by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

What has happened to the mind of a person, or the mind of our nation, for that matter, which would perpetuate a policy which exceeds the Jewish Holocaust in sheer numbers killed, and even today seeks to legislate further proliferation of the madness? What has happened to us? We have raised a generation taught by our Supreme Court's decision--not the people--and a culture where life is not viewed as sacred and protected anymore. We now live in a culture where even at the toddler stage they hear and have even been told, "I wish I had not had you." Or, "It was my choice to have you." This generation is subliminally, and/or, blatantly taught life only has purpose if my mother deems it so, or in other words saying: my worth is solely based on how my mother felt at that time when carrying me. The law implies that life is based on condition and not the endowed right from a higher divine authority. Therefore, the ever increasing problem of man's inhumanity to man increases, for they feel they are the arbiters, and if so, lives who are impeding their pursuit of life are to be perceived as intrusions and not sacred beings with endowed rights from God himself. What has happened to the mind of a person who has no reference of the endowment of God was correctly perceived by Rev. Jackson: their conscience is eroded by their lack of acknowledgement.

The cornerstone of all law begins with the sanctity of life and when this is removed culturally you will have an acceleration of lawlessness on every level. The sanctioning of the wholesale murder of over 54 million innocent children since 1973, over 20 million of them African-American, has emaciated the moral fabric of our nation and as long as the law remains in the mind of its people, the brazen inhumanity and callous acts of violence will perpetuate.

Rev. Jesse Jackson asked the question, "What kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?" Let us take a look. In 2011, just to mention a few, we inject women's wombs with deadly serums to induce a late term abortion that induces still-born children which are later dissected for body parts businesses right here in the United States; our daughters have unexpected births and the mother takes the daughter to the hospital and leaves the child in a plastic bag at home; an abortionist keep their lunch next to body parts of aborted babies without the fear of government inspection; children are given contraceptives in school and are shown by teachers how to bring their partner to orgasm without indulging in natural intercourse; and even a would-be prom queen has her baby at the event and flushes it down the toilet and then goes back to the dance floor...

In answer to Rev. Jesse Jackson's question--"What kind of society will we have?"--we clearly see the depravity and moral decay of what we have become. The real question we need to challenge ourselves with, Dr. King already proposed in his speech, "Where Do We Go From Here?":

"First we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being Black."

"On the contrary, we must see in ourselves the image of the Divine and accept the divine mission to repair and free ourselves in the process of restructuring and freeing this country from the triple evils of racism, materialism and militarism."

I would add, Abortion. This is something, we as a people, must rediscover.

Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr. is the founder of www.BlackGenocide.org - a website designed to reach the Afro-American community with the truth about abortion.

PRESS CONTACT:

Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr.

President, LEARN NE

201-704-9325

This Is A Must Read: "Brooklyn teens face reproductive rights challenges" by Mary Alice Miller

2011-02-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

This Is A Must Read article written by Mary Alice Miller of the Our Time Press. Please pass this along to our young kids in the community!

Teens living in Brooklyn are giving birth and terminating pregnancies at numbers higher than almost any borough in the city. According to the recently released N.Y.C. Summary of Vital Statistics 2009, 40 Brooklyn teens under age 15 gave birth, the most in the city; 672 teens, ages 15-17, gave birth – second only to the Bronx; 1,808 teens, ages 18-19 gave birth – the highest teen birth numbers in the city. Brooklyn communities with the highest births to teens are Brownsville, East New York and Bushwick.

Brooklyn teens experienced the most spontaneous terminations (miscarriages) in the city. The highest numbers of induced terminations among teens took place in Brooklyn.

One-hundred thirty-three adolescents under age 15 terminated their pregnancies; there were 1,663 induced terminations among 15-17-year-olds; and 2,586 among 18-19-year-olds. In New York City, the proportion of pregnancies ending in an induced termination is highest among younger women, peaking at about 28 percent at age 30. For women under the age of 25, more pregnancies end in induced termination than in a live birth or spontaneous termination. Of all induced terminations in NYC, the vast majority (88 percent) take place in the first 12 weeks.

According to the NYC Department of Health, induced terminations of pregnancies among all age groups in NYC have gone down since 2000. Since that same year, the birth rate among teens has declined by 27 percent. Teen births accounted for 6.2 percent of all births in 2009.

To read the entire article click this link: Brooklyn Teens Face Reproductive Rights Challenges

Thelma Hamilton Campus Defeats Satellite Academy for Alternative "A" Title

2011-02-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Thelma Hamilton Campus defeats Arturo A. Schomburg Satellite Academy for the 2010-2011 Boys PSAL Alternative High School "A" City Championship. The article is written by Joseph Staszewski who covers High School Sports for New York Post.

Confidence is something Kevin Charles never lacks.

“I felt confidence, a lot of confidence in my jump shot -- every time we play I have confidence in my jump shot,” the Thelma Hamilton senior guard said.

Charles connected on four first-quarter 3-pointers. He then went quiet for nearly three periods, but his conviction never wavered. The Jets had defending champion Satellite Academy on the ropes when Charles delivered a dagger trey that helped his team build an eight-point lead with a little more than three minutes left to play.

“I knew I was going to knock it down,” Charles said. “When I have the ball in my hands I don’t feel like I’m going to miss.”

To read the article click here: Jets power past defending champ Satellite for Alternative "A" Title

To view the Slide show by Richie Maldonado (PSAL Photographer)click here: Thelma Hamilton vs Satellite Academy Slide Show

# 11 Lawrence Duffie & #21 Kevin Charles of Thelma Hamilton Campus

Black History Month Timeline

2011-02-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

Black History Month is a month that has more value than the days the month of February contains. Black History Month is a month where the African-American struggle and sacrifice is put into the spotlight. As I was searching through the World Wide Web, I came across some interesting Black History Facts. Let's enlighten ourselves. Here are some:

Timeline of Events in

African American History

1619

August 20. Twenty Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a Dutch ship. They were the first blacks to be forcibly settled as involuntary laborers in the North American British Colonies.

1641

Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery by statute.

1663

September 13. The first documented attempt at a rebellion by slaves took place in Gloucester County, Virginia.

1664

Maryland was the first state to try to discourage by law the marriage of white women to black men.

1688

February 18. The Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, passed the first formal antislavery resolution.

1712

April 7. A slave insurrection occurred in New York City, resulting in the execution of 21 African Americans.

1739

September 9. The Cato revolt was the first serious disturbance among slaves. After killing more than 25 whites, most of the rebels, led by a slave named Cato, were rounded up as they tried to escape to Florida. More than 30 blacks were executed as participants.

1770

March 5. Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, was among the five victims in the Boston Massacre. He is said to have been the first to fall.

1772

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable decided to build a trading post near Lake Michigan, thus becoming the first permanent resident of the settlement that became Chicago.

To read more click on this link right here: Timeline of Events in African American History

JRIP (Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program) Featured on NYDailyNews.com

2011-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

( Lt. David Glassberg along with Det. Sasha Spivey; Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program (JRIP) )

Courtesy of NYDailyNews.com

Read this article that features Lt. David Glassberg, Det. Sasha Spivey and Officer Tramaine Oxley along with the Officers of the Juvenile Robbery Invention Program talking about their work in the Brownsville community. The article is written by Rocco Parascandola, the Daily News Police Bureau Cheif

Troubled Brooklyn teens are getting some tough love from cops hoping to steer juvenile offenders onto the right path.

Ten officers are assigned to the Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program (JRIP) in Brownsville, which helps housing project teens busted for robbery get job training, social services and educational opportunities.

"We want to help these kids," said Lt. David Glassberg, who runs the JRIP program. "We do what we can to keep them from getting in trouble again."

To read the article in its full entirity click this link: Brownsville teens being monitored by cops also offered guidance following robbery arrests

The Weekend In Revue with Our Community Planning Partners

2011-01-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

Brownsville Partnership staff and volunteers was put to work this past weekend. This past was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Weekend in Brownsville and all over the country. In his honor, we went in the community and done several activities with our Brownsville residents.

Greg "Jocko" Jackson and his staff at the Brownsville Recreation Center hosted a theatrical production by NIA Production titled "She's All Into Herself" on Friday night and the 1st Annual Brooklyn's "We Got Talent" Talent Show on Saturday afternoon. Both events were packed with people of all ages.

The theatrical production "She's All Into Herself" was about a teenager who was conceited, stuck-up and wanted everything to be about her. She started to realize that everything could not be about her when she encountered some unfortunate events such as getting kicked off of the Step-Team, being an understudy for the leading role in the school play, missing out on the chance to be friends with a boy that she liked and her mother having an Asthma attack. After all of those events occurred, she started to act humble. Overall, the play was great! The cast had the audience laughing from start to finish.

Brooklyn's "We Got Talent" Talent Show was action-packed! The talent who performed for the packed gymnasium at the Brownsville Recreation had the audience singing along and nodding their head to the beat of the music. There are some very talented people in Brooklyn!

Monday morning, Brownsville Partnership staff and volunteers along with Ameri-Corps did a Community Clean-Up in Brownsville Houses and Van Dyke Houses. One of the buildings in Van Dyke Houses, 362 Sutter Ave, is where Dr. Richard Kennedy grew up in. Dr. Richard Kennedy is a Senior Medical Officer at World Bank. He is prominent figure in the Medical and Health Industry.

Thank you to everyone that came out!

Follow us on Twitter @bvillepartner

Also, keep Kevina Ervin in your prayers! She was the 16 year old young female who was shot in the face this past weekend. Let's pray for her recovery!

"The Design Difference: In Brownsville, Enormous Urban Challenges, and Hope" by Alissa Walker

2011-01-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

Check out this article written by Alissa Walker who writes for GOOD. GOOD is a online publication that covers and reports on topics such as Action, Health, Politics and Technology. The article Alissa Walker wrote "The Design Difference: In Brownsville, Enormous Urban Challenges, and Hope" speaks about the solutions Brownsville needs in the community!

It is a 3 part series!

Read this excerpt right here:

GOOD was asked to attend The Design Difference, a charrette held by the Japan Society, Common Ground, and the Designers Accord. In this series, we're examining design solutions to social problems and ways for designers to contribute pro bono work for the proposed solutions.

As I ride a bus through the neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn two days after Halloween, I see ghosts. The location of a once-thriving famous pickle factory. The abandoned steel plant laced with razor wire. An empty main street that once was filled with bustling furniture stores.

As part of a group of thinkers gathered for a charrette to focus on one of New York’s most underserved communities, we hear plenty from our tour guide about a phantom neighborhood of front stoops, street ball, and a vibrant Jewish community that lived here in the early 1900s. What we see is Brownsville’s reality of broken windows and vacant buildings.

The bus stops outside what looks like an unremarkable building, a low-slung concrete-covered complex. Just stepping inside we know this place is different. The warm air is humidified by a large public pool. A hallway is draped with vivid murals made to look like an Egyptian tomb. Visitors are greeted by a slow-moving iguana named Juliet. And the most remarkable part: There are people here, lots of people here, perhaps more people than we’ve seen during our entire 30-minute tour. This is the Brownsville Recreation Center, and it is the heart of the community.

To read the article in its entirety log click here The Design Difference: In Brownsville, Enormous Urban Challenges, and Hope

Brownsville Partnership Weekly "Koffee Klatsch"

2011-01-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday January 12th, 2011, Karrie Scarboro, one of our Community Planning Partners, held a "Koffee Klutch" at her residence. "Koffee Klutch" is a weekly event sponsored by Brownsville Partnership. You can deem this a discussion group because we talk about the issues and concerns our residents of Brownsville have. For more information about the weekly "Koffee Klutch" you can contact Karrie Scarboro at kscarboro@commonground.org or Randy Millard at rmillard@commonground.org

Follow us on Twitter @bvillepartner

To view some more of the footage that was taken at the "Koffee Klutch" log on to our You Tube page Brownsville Partnership You Tube

Here is some more footage from the "Koffee Klutch":

Unlimited Potential:Saquan Thompson by Randy Millard

2011-01-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

Randy Millard, one of our Community Planning Partners, is also a Freelance Journalist for different media outlets in the city such as NYHoops.com and Bounce Magazine. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of his blog The Brownsville Journal, which is located on Wordpress.com (The Brownsville Journal).

This is one of his pieces of work that was featured on NYHoops.com. This is about Saquan Thompson who was a great kid and a talented basketball player. Saquan was from Brownsville.

Read this people!

Unilimited Potential: Saquan Thompson by Randy Millard

The game of Basketball builds friendships, bonds, brotherhoods, and lastly lifetime memories. In New York City, we New Yorkers cherish this game. Basketball dominates New York City. We love The World’s Most Famous Area that is better known as Madison Square Garden. We love the wars on the cracked asphalt in the parks. We love the friendly neighborhood dogfights when someone makes a “bad” call in a heated game. We love New York City High School Basketball. Saquan Thompson played New York City High School Basketball.

Saquan Thompson played at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School with McDonald’s All-American Jayvaughn Pinkston and Branden Frazier who is currently doing a good job at Fordham University. Even though he was “shadowed” by those two All-City standouts, if you knew Saquan Thompson, you knew he could’ve been a candidate for All-City at any High School institution in New York City. Saquan was freakishly athletic. Saquan was a great on the offensive and defensive glass. Saquan played hard every game he checked in. Saquan cheered his team on while he was on the bench yearning to display his talents on the floor.

Saquan Thompson played like where he was from…he was from the neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn. He carried the Brownsville motto on his back. Saquan never ran and if you knew him, he never will.

Who would have thought the last memories I would have of him was at I.S. 218 in East New York. We were playing in a Spring League and I said to him, “Yo Sa! You don’t have it no more!” Saquan simply laughed at my comment and caught a dunk that silences the whole entire gymnasium. Saquan looked at me and said “Cmon son! You’re from the hood…you know (laughs).” I subbed him out because I felt like he tried to show me up (laughs).

Every time we would always share a laugh or two. I have memories of this kid being the BIGGEST KID on the court when he was playing for I.S. 323 in the Dorothy L. Rice Junior High School League at the Brownsville Recreation Center. I was even more proud of him when he told he was graduating from Bishop Loughlin this past June. That is a great accomplishment for a kid from Brownsville. Being from Brownsville is a different kind of struggle.

Saquan Thompson turned 18 years old on November 26th. He got to see the age of 18 years old but did not get to see the year of 2011. He was murdered on December 22nd. When I received the news, I couldn’t believe it because he was such a good kid. It really me when I seen him in the casket at the funeral home where his wake was held. I couldn’t even cry. My tears turned into smiles because he had impact on my life. Being from Brownsville and watching him grow up was so cool. I was one of the guys he interacted with. Saquan always showed me love. We would just joke around.

We must value life. There are 24 hours in a day. A split second or the next the movement on the clock can change your life tremendously. I know people who coached Saquan Thompson can tell you how much potential he had to be anything he wanted to be in life. People can tell how funny he was. People can tell you about the little temper tantrums he had as a promising 7th Grader at I.S. 323. Saquan Thompson was a great kid.

As lovers of the game of basketball, value your teammates and coaching staff. You would never know the last time you will learn a valuable lesson from your coach or the last time you’re going to pass the ball to your teammate.

Our sentiments and regards go to the family and friends of Saquan Thompson. Hold your head people.

Brownsville Partnership You Tube Page

2011-01-10T08:39:00.000-08:00

Karrie Scarboro and Randy Millard along with Erica Mateo have created a You Tube page for Brownsville Partnership. Our Community Planning Partners have been in the community doing excellent work thus far. As they came were conducting the Community Planning Partner Survey # 1, they came up with the idea to conduct surveys in different ways such as:

Audio Surveys- Your answers will be recorded on a voice recording device by one of the Community Planning Partners
Video Surveys- One of the Community Planning Partners will film you answering the questions with a Flip Mino HD Camera
Written Surveys- You can fill out the survey with one of the Community Planning Partners

Here is a Video Survey done by Terrell Watts who resides in Brownsville Houses:

Check out what is going in the neighborhood and at Brownsville Partnership at Brownsville Partnership You Tube Page

Remember, if you see a Community Planning Partner in the neighborhood be kind and conduct a survey because who knows. your answers may change the community!

HOPE IS INSIDE

Mother Gaston's Brownsville Corner Stories

2010-12-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

"One day I was looking out from my stoop and watching all the children play. People were chatting on the street, and it made me think about Brownsville. Though our heritage and culture runs deep, I felt there was something lacking within our community.

But what was it?

I realized that I wanted to empower the youth and make them proud of their common heritage. Then I knew what I needed to do: create an educational and cultural center for old and young people of the neighborhood. This idea was the seed for the Heritage House."

Mother Rosetta Gaston had a dream for Brownsville. Mother Rosetta Gaston's dream for our community was for everyone to know their culture and history. Understand, if you we do not know who we are, then what are we living for? Mother Rosetta Gaston name still lives on in Brownsville.

Mother Gaston's Brownsville Corner Stories is a page on Facebook where you can reminiscence about the fun times you had in Brownsville. There are a lot of fun filled memories people had shared together in Brownsville. We often tend to go back in time saying "I remember when Brownsville was..."

The page is very interactive! Add yourself to this page if you have a Facebook account!

Here is the link: Mother Gaston's Brownsville Corner Stories on Facebook

This is Rosetta Gaston page: Rosetta Gaston Facebook Profile Page

Lastly, check out the Brownsville Corner Stories stickers and find out more about their quotes at these locations!

Click here: Mother Gaston's Brownsville Corner Stories Quotes and Locations

Remember these words from Mother Gaston herself:

"By connecting with our past we make a stronger present for a better future."

Brownsville's P.S.12 fighting to save after-school tutoring program

2010-12-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

(Photo Courtesy of NY Daily News)

"A Brownsville school is fighting to save an after-school tutoring program for at-risk kids that once spared it from a state takeover."

People let's save our schools!

Check out this article on the New York Daily News website written by Ben Chapman. Ben Chapman composed an article about how P.S. 12 is going to lose their after-school literacy program due to Citywide budget cuts. The literacy program at the Brownsville school gives students one-on-one instruction to teach students basic reading methods to students in Grades three, four and five who reads at three grades below their reading level.

Let's Save Our Schools!

Click this link to read the article in its entirety: P.S. 12 Fighting to Save After-School Tutoring Program

Brownsville Recreation Center 2nd Annual Christmas Tree Lightning Event

2010-12-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

(Staff in Training Interns and Nia Thompson)

This past Friday, December 3rd, Greg "Jocko" Jackson, Jerry Childs, faculty and staff of the Brownsville Recreation Center held their 2nd Annual Christmas Tree Lightning Event. The event was filled with Holiday Spirit as the Staff in Training Interns entertained the youth with different activities. DJ Pleasure rocked the event with a variety of Christmas songs from Boyz II Men to Donnie Hathaway.

After DJ Pleasure did his thing on the turntables, the Staff in Training Interns became Music Producers. Some of the Staff in Training Interns had to orchestrate a small group of kids into one-hit wonders! The kids and Staff in Training interns sung Christmas Carols in the gymnasium. Their rendition of "Jingle Bells" will be sold iTunes in a couple of weeks.

Before the lightning of the Christmas Tree, "Jocko", Jerry Childs, along with Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes and Kevin Jeffrey, Chief of Brooklyn Recreation, honored two individuals with the Do Good-ers' Award: Bruce Hartley of the FDNY and Matt Molley, Principal at Aspirations Diploma Plus High School.

(Left to Right: Kevin Jeffrey (Chief of Brooklyn Recreation), Bruce Hartley (FDNY Firefighter) & Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes)

(Left to Right: Kevin Jeffrey (Chief of Brooklyn Recreation), Matt Molley (Principal at Aspirations Diploma Plus High School) & Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes)

The recipients of the "Do Good-ers' Award" were recognized for their hard work, diligence and impacting the community with their community service in Brownsville. Good job guys!

Once the lightning of the Christmas Tree got under way, Kevin Pratt took some photos of the event! Here are some photos he sent to the Brownsville Partnership. Enjoy!

(Putting the Star of the Christmas Tree)

(One of the Christmas Trees)

(Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes & Brownsville Bobkatz)

("Do Good-er" Award Recipient Bruce Hartley of the FDNY & Greg "Jocko" Jackson)

(The Children singing their hearts outs! "Oh, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!")

(Photos are courtesy of Kevin Pratt)

Community Planning Partner Survey #1

2010-12-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

Our Community Planning Partners, Randy Millard and Karrie Scarboro, put together a survey with questions regarding the state of Brownsville. Despite the violence and the everyday struggle a Brownsville resident endures, we must put our minds together to create a better Brownsville. Our Community Planning Partners will be in the neighborhood with the Community Planning Partner Surveys for you to fill out. The survey is only Five (5) questions. Here are the questions:

Describe Brownsville:
What are some advantages/disadvantages in Brownsville?
What are ways we can unite our community?
What are your opinions/suggestions in attracting our youth in the Brownsville Community?
In which direction do you see Brownsville going to within the next Five years?

These are the questions that can change Brownsville! Picture that! Our Community Planning Partners have something special in-store for Brownsville. Come along and join the Community Planning Partners in making efforts to make Brownsville a better environment!

Brownsville, Brooklyn Facebook Page

2010-11-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

To all of my Facebook users, there is a Brownsville, Brooklyn Facebook Group Page! Check it out! Put up some of your suggestions and opinions on how we can change the neighborhood! Most importantly, add the page to one of your favorite pages. Let's make a change now! Hope Is Inside

Brownsville, Brooklyn Facebook Group Page

The Japan Society Visits Brownsville

2010-11-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

November 2-3, 2010

An observation field trip to Brownsville district of Brooklyn, New York. Followed by Social design charrette by designers, social entrepreneurs, and others whose work includes addressing social issues.

Organized by Japan Society

Visit The Japan Society Website to see what they do in the Japanese Community The Japan Society

Here are some photos taken from The Japan Society.

To view the photos as a slideshow click here: Sildeshow

To view the photos as a thumbnail click here: Thumbnail Link for Photos

Brownsville on the Water

2010-07-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

by Shawn Brooks

The Brownsville Partnership staff cruised the Hudson River enjoying the sounds and vibes of the summer abroad the Skyline Princess. Common Ground's annual summer all staff event brought together all departments and all 350 staff members for a day of food, music, socializing, dancing, and sight seeing as we sailed across the hudson river. The Brownsville Partnership staff all came in our summer best and it was a well deserved day of fun. Can't wait til next year!

Brownsville Partnership Farmer's Market

2010-07-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

Are you hungry for food? But not just any food – amazingly fresh, ripe produce that is local and organic? I think your next market destination is the Brownsville Partnership Farmer’s Market on Livonia and Rockaway. The Brownsville Partnership has partnered with GrowNYC to provide healthier food to local Brownsville residents. Every Friday from 2PM to 6PM, we have a stand right across the 3 subway stop. With tables lush with corn, onions, scallions, beets, radishes, cherries, blueberries, and oh, so much more, it’ll be a feast for the eyes as well as hungry bellies. We take WIC, Health Bucks, Food Stamps/EBT, and cash. For every $5 EBT/Foodstamps you spend, you get $2 of FREE Health Bucks. By buying our produce, not only will you be helping out your health, but you’ll be directly supporting the Brownsville community and local farmers.

The Brownsville Community

Each Youthmarket farm stand is like a smallbusiness operated by its staff of teen entrepreneurs. We have employed threeBrownsville teenagers – Kashaun, Toby, and Douglas. After attending GrowNYC’s two-day training in Manhattan and attending various meetings at the Brownsville Partnership office, we’ve prepared them to organize and operate an urban farm stand in Brownsville.

With the guidance of Shane, our experienced Youthmarket coordinator, these young New Yorkers learn all aspects of small business management, including customer service, promotion, and marketing. They’ve also discovered the price and quality advantages of eating seasonal, local produce, as well as the nutritional value of the food they sell.

The Local Farmers

GrowNYC purchases wholesale quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables from local producers participating in the Greenmarket program or at the wholesale market for local growers in Hunt’s Point. This system provides farmers with additional revenue without requiring them to make the costly investments associated with retailing. Because most of the farmers who supply our markets have insufficient staff to handle multiple markets on a single day, the sales achieved through our market would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Furthermore, by expanding the market for locally grown produce, our market helps to keep regional farmland in production and reduce carbon emissions.

We’re going to start cooking classes sometime soon, so be on the look out!

2010-07-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

by Shawn Brooks

In the mist of a city wide heatwave, an inferno was setting the streets ablaze in Brownsville Brooklyn. The young and the old all came out to soak up the sun, the water and, and the rhythmic vibes of the 2nd part of the 2nd annual Pitkin Summer Plazas celebrating the Brownsville Community and its merchants that align the Pitkin ave strip. If you weren't playing Bingo for prizes, you prolly were either riding one of the free scooters or rented a free bike from Bike and Roll of NYC. Maybe you were just enjoying the sweet sounds of Gospel harmonizing from the New Life Seven Day Adventist Praise Team or grooving to the sounds of Central America coming from the WAGAYUI BAND out of Gautemala. A good time was had by all no matter what you came for. The storm approached(approaching storm band) as the kids splished and splashed in the outdoor pool and sprinklers.

If you walked further down the strip you would have seen childrens face covered with mask they just made under the Arts & Craft tent. Or you might've even seen little kids walking up to you offering you a neighborly smile and a friendly hello with the newly made sock puppet. If you missed out on all of that, don't kick your self just yet. because you'll have one more opportunity to celebrate with us Saturday July 24th same time, same place.. dont be late and dont forget the camera! see you there!

First Easter egg hunt at Betsy Head Memorial Park in Brownsville, Brooklyn

2010-04-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

BY Randy Kreider DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, April 4th 2010

Easter came a day early in Brooklyn yesterday morning, when dozens of eggs-cited children stormed Betsy Head Memorial Park for a massive egg hunt.
It was the first Easter event at the Brownsville park, but kids hoped it would become an annual spring tradition.
"I wish I had an egg detector," said Mirlaine Tanis, 10, who lives nearby. "I like the colors, like light pink, and the dresses you get to wear."
"I like the chocolate," added her brother, Christian, 8.
He was not alone.
"My favorite thing about this is the candy," said Amber Williams, 7, who accumulated a massive supply of sweets during the bash. "I think I will find 60 eggs because when it comes to eggs, I'm not kidding."
Amber also won the Easter hat contest, scoring her even more candy.
Her mother - who made the pink hat with carnations and an Easter bunny on top - was happy to be outside in her neighborhood with so many people having fun. "It's a beautiful day," said Vanetta Williams, 31. "It's sunny outside, and it's something fun to do.

Former NBA man Gregory Jackson needs help getting aid from Brownsville Recreation Center to Haiti

2010-04-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

Clem Richardson

Maisel/NewsGregory "Jocko" Jackson, executive director of the Brownsville Partnership and Brownsville Recreation Center, runs myriad services for the Brownsville, Brooklyn community.
Gregory Jackson needs a little help.
The director of Brooklyn's Brownsville Recreation Center has a large room full of a tractor-trailer's worth of food, water and clothing that local residents donated for Haitian earthquake victims.
Now Jackson can't get anyone to take the pallets of supplies off his hands.
"We called a lot of groups and no one will take it," Jackson said. "The community gave so much stuff because we know what it is to need and not have. Now we need to get it where it is meant to go."
For Jackson, a Brownsville native and former NBA player who returned home - and to the center - in 1985 so he could help make it better, the quantity of supplies collected for Haiti is just more proof of the difference in how the community is and how it is seen by outsiders.
"People hear Brownsville and think of bad things," he said. "There are a lot of great things going on here.
"We live in a village just like the [Greenwich] Village. We do things in our neighborhood just like they do anywhere else."
Much of what happens revolves and evolves around Jackson, 59, who joined the center as a recreation specialist and 10 years later was given the reins.
It was a natural fit.
"I grew up in this building," he said. "I was born and raised in the neighborhood. I get a lot more satisfaction out of being here because I'm from the neighborhood."
Jackson said his first task when he assumed the directorship was to make the building more neighborhood friendly.
"It was like the building was off-limits before," Jackson said.
"They used to have metal detectors and that thick glass panels when you came through the front door. What is the purpose of that? We got rid of all that."
Jackson began running a dizzying array of programs and services out of the building at 1555 Linden Blvd., from meal and food bank programs for seniors to homework help, computer and sports programs for younger members.
There is a computer resource center, an indoor pool that Jackson wants to renovate, and fitness and dance rooms.
When the Empire Ballroom closed two years ago, removing one of the last roller skating rinks accessible to the community, the center started hosting free, weekly Friday skate nights, complete with a deejay and lights, in the center's gym.
Recently Jackson began soliciting bicycle donations for another creation, the Buffalo Soldiers Bike Club, which will teach neighborhood children to ride safely. A former New York Knick, he coaches the Reeves Drakeford Brownsville Jets, a local basketball team.
Jackson is also executive director of the Brownsville Partnership a group he started two years ago to help local people in danger of losing their homes or being evicted from their apartments access to needed city services.
"A lot of people just do not know what help is out there," Jackson said.
The center's programs extend well beyond its doors.
Jackson said each summer they sponsor a "Train Stop Show," where local bands perform live in subway stations that run through the community.
"It's a live show, with speakers, a band, microphones, the whole works," Jackson said.
Jackson is most proud of the Brooklyn Old-Timers Week. Held each July - this year's kicks off July 30 - it's a celebration of all things Brownsville. Last year, the event brought an estimated 35,000 people out to play.
"A guy called me the other day to ask when we would have it this year," Jackson said. "He was in Germany, about to be deployed to Iraq, and he wanted to plan his furlough time around it."
This year's program will also feature the first presentation of the Joyce Shelby Award, named for the late Daily News Brooklyn Bureau writer who died last year.
The father of nine and grandfather of seven, Jackson won the city Parks Department's W. Allison and Elizabeth Stubbs Davis Award last month for his "extraordinary dedication to the community he serves."
Ever the Brownsville booster, Jackson used his acceptance speech to invite everyone to Brownsville.
crichardson@nydailynews.com

Brownsville in Photos

2010-02-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

Obama in Brownsville?

2010-02-10T17:35:00.001-08:00

Just imagine- President Obama meeting with residents of Brownsville in the middle of Betsy Head Park during a beautiful Spring day in May. At the beginning of his speech, President Obama would thank and congratulate Brownsville for a record turnout vote in November 2008.

After a New York Times article written by Samuel Roberts stating, “[a]ccording to the preliminary machine count on Tuesday, Mr. Obama carried the predominantly black 55th Assembly District, which includes Brownsville, with 98 percent of the votes from the nearly 35,000 people who cast ballots”; a certain momentum ran through the streets. President Obama restored HOPE within the community. You could feel the PRIDE oozing out through the streets. 98% of the VOTE in Brownsville is a HUGE accomplish if he only knew.

Just imagine if we use that same momentum and 98% of the families in Brownsville complete the Census form. Brownsville would become a local stop for all US Presidents.

Let’s get out there Brownsville. Let’s complete those Census forms and get President Obama out to Brownsville.

Alicka

When you hear the word Brownsville...

2010-02-09T21:21:00.001-08:00

One question 50 people: Vincent, a community organizer with the Brownsville Partnership decided to ask 50 people in and around Brownsville, “When you hear the word ‘Brownsville’, what comes to your mind?”

There have been some very interesting responses to this simple but yet complicated question. It’s a simple question because for some young people they most likely think about the here and now. What’s going on in the neighborhood as they presently see it? It’s a complicated question to many old timers because it forces them to think about what used to be. The answer often reveals details about a community where children were raised by the entire village. Today, children seem to fend for themselves. Its survival of the fittest by any means necessary. The old timers talk about a time when family used to host “Rent parties” for families needing a little extra help for the month. Today you have the need for organizations such as the Brownsville Partnership because families are becoming homeless and forced into the shelter system at alarming rates. Old timers talk about bustling parks, fresh fruits and vegetable stands and community shops carrying anything and everything you could possibly need. Today Brownsville is packed with 99 cent stores and corner stores with anything but healthy food.

What I see is a community with rich history, residents with the resilience to keep going and children with so much potential that only the sky can limit them. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in many places in and out of New York and have had the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life. But there is no place like Brownsville and I haven’t met one person that could measure up to personalities I’ve met in Brownsville. There’s no place like home.

I encourage everyone to visit Brownsville, Brooklyn and if you would like a personal tour, you can reach out to anyone at the Brownsville Partnership. After your visit, I invite you to ask yourself, “When you hear the word ‘Brownsville’, what comes to your mind?”

Alicka

Lock-'em-up laws infect entire neighbourhoods

2010-01-31T19:21:00.000-08:00

Patty Winsa Staff Reporter

NEW YORK CITY—Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan shuffle past sinewy resin chairs sculpted by computer and pixelated flowers moving on a wall. Then they stop to study an arresting red-and-black map of Brooklyn hanging in a dark corner of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit.
Each point on the map, and the red line rising from it like a ray of light, represents the home of a person who was sent to prison in 2003.
People move in to read the map’s description and back out to consider it anew. The sea of red lines obliterates Brooklyn, a startling depiction of an annual mass migration of residents from borough neighbourhoods to prison.
In 2003, those red lines added up to $359 million, the sum for locking up convicts from a handful of Brooklyn’s poorest communities, areas where incarceration rates are much higher than crime rates.More than $1 million was being spent to jail residents in each of 35 individual blocks.
By pinpointing where inmates lived — a radical departure from maps that normally show where crime occurred — author Eric Cadora of the Justice Mapping Center, was able to show that prisons hadn’t made these neighbourhoods any safer because the crime rate didn’t fall. In fact, prison was looking more like an endless migration policy. Millions of dollars were being spent to remove and return people, says Cadora.
In New York, more than half of state prison inmates get out within four years and return home. With little chance of finding a job and few services to ease their re-entry, a third are back in jail within three years, most for violating parole or probation.
The cost was an eye-opener for many states, leading legislators to question the 25-year ballooning investment in prisons despite a significant decline in crime rates during the last decade.
The result was justice reform and reduced incarceration in 10 states, which reinvestedthe prison savings in the neighbourhoods.
Canada doesn’t track where inmates come from or where they return to upon release. As part of this series, the Starobtained inmate address data through freedom of information requests to map incarceration costs. While the data did not allow for an analysis at the city block level, it did, in the case of Toronto, allow a look at a neighbourhood level. The most expensive areas for jail costs are home to the city’s least well off.
Which is exactly what Cadora’s maps demonstrate.
“When you look at prison populations, you find that they are mostly concentrated in very small parts of every city in the United States, and that those populations are very strongly correlated with poverty and with people of colour,” says Laura Kurgan, the Columbia University architecture professor who collaborated with Cadora to turn his map into a statement powerful enough to be a museum piece.
“Ninety-five per cent of people going to prison come back, but people didn’t think of that in the get-tough era,” says Cadora.
During the 1980s, the war on drugs saw penalties for most drug offences get much harsher. “It was like ‘throw away the key.’ But we didn’t throw away the key for anybody.We made sentences longer. We put a lot more people in for short times (that) we never (would have) put in (prison) at all.”
Studies have shown that communities with high prison admissions spiral even further down. Businesses leave, social networking is nonexistent, and what little informal social control there is fails when many of the area’s young men go to prison.
Over time, the chances of being incarcerated increases for any resident who lives there, says Jeffrey Fagan, a Columbia law professor who studied New York prison admissions from 1985 to 1996. He believes incarceration is “grown from within” in these areas. Coupled with more punitive police enforcement, it ensures a “growing number of repeat admissions . . . even as crime rates (fall).”
“A lot of people want to prove, is it poverty that causes incarceration or incarceration that leads to poverty? But in all honesty, it just doesn’t matter,” says Cadora. “It’s a circular, self-feeding kind of system and the important thing is to interrupt it. When you look at reentry and migration, you start to realize that criminal justice is not going to solve it.”
IT’S EASY to get to Brownsville, in central Brooklyn,by either crossing from lower Manhattan on one of the most famous bridges in the world or by taking the R train. But most people don’t want to come here. In the largest concentration of public housing in the U.S., people live on household incomes that average $8,000. One-third are unemployed.One out of every 10 males aged 16 to 25 is in prison.
It wasn’t always this bad.
“We had the best schools, the best stores,” said Greg Jackson, the executive director of the Brownsville Partnership, an outcrop of Common Ground, a homeless-prevention agency. He grew up in Brownsville in the ’50s.
“We had all of the bakeries, we had the delis, we had the movie houses, and all those things that are no longer here.”
People came from all over Brooklyn to shop on Pitkin Avenue, the main street. Then the first subsidized housing project — low-rise apartments called the Brownsville Houses— sprang up in the ’40s, and the rest stacked up like dominoes.
“The neighbourhood went from a tenement-driven neighbourhood to a project-driven neighbourhood,” says Jackson, 56. People moving to the projects “came from all over the city, all over the country.They didn’t have a trust for you and you lost that common bond.”
Many residents moved out, taking their family-run businesses with them.
Today, says Jackson, “the one business we have is that if your father went to jail, it’s likely you go to jail. That’s the only father-son business we have.”
When major rioting followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Brownsville was torn up and never rebuilt.
“Places that you thought would be there forever when I was a kid never came back,” says Jackson.
Then came crack cocaine. During the ’80s, addicts lined up to buy the drug outside apartment buildings, and police patrolled without leaving their cars.
IF THERE IS a glimmer of hope in the community of 86,000 today, it comes from Jackson and the Brownsville Partnership.
The partnership, a non-profit organization funded by a philanthropist, offers parenting classes, prenatal instruction for first-time mothers, a visiting nurse program and high-school equivalency classes for two “million-dollar blocks.”
Jackson, a former NBA player, agreed to reopen and manage the city-run Brownsville Recreation Center (BRC) in 1997 after it was closed for six months because of gang violence. “The kids were running wild, they couldn’t control it,” says Jerry Childs, the centre’s deputy manager. Now it’s the mostused centre in Brooklyn. It has a weight room, workout equipment, computer labs, recording studios, a library and gym.
Jackson and Childs use basketball as a teaching tool, pre-empting clinics with career days, switching up gang members, and delaying tipoffs until teams can name state capitals.
Jackson doesn’t tolerate rule breakers.
“He got here, and he’s from Brownsville. ‘I know you, but I know your mother and your father and your uncle. I know everybody in your whole family.’ What’s a kid going to say?” asks Childs. “You can’t argue with him. You get caught and you’ll get put out.” In April, Jackson and Vincent Mattos, a case worker for the partnership, started going door-to-door to reach 150 young people in Brownsville that they know have committed armed robbery and live in 58 buildings run by the New York City Housing Authority.
Gretchen Dykstra, a senior consultant with the Brownsville Partnership, hopes Jackson will become “everybody’s uncle” and funnel kids to the partnership’s services.
“That’s the brilliance of Eric (Cadora’s) point,” says Dykstra. “Why spend all that money on building prisons and juvenile justice facilities when you can have things like the Brownsville Partnership?”
CADORA CREATED the first “money map” a decade ago, while working for the Centre for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, the largest alternative-to-incarceration program in the U.S.
Since then, 10 states have signed on to justice reinvestment, including Connecticut, which went from having one of the fastest-growing prison populations in the nation to one of the slowest. The plan calls for states to adopt five to 10 measures that will reduce prison populations and return the savings to communities most affected by crime and incarceration. Measures include paroling inmates on time — only 20 per cent of inmates are — or finding alternatives to prison for people who violate their probation.
“All of a sudden, you’ve got millions of dollars worth of solutions that aren’t necessarily any less safe than what you’re doing,” says Cadora, noting that none of the states that adopted the justice reform plan have experienced an increase in crime. “That caught on like wildfire.As we talk to state legislators and state executives, it gives them ways to rethink criminal justice policy with some political cover.”
Communities have used the money to create affordable and supportive housing for people returning from prison and to improve health and employment services.
Cadora, who founded the Justice Mapping Center three years ago, consults to the Council of State Governments, which leads the reinvestment program. He is also working with the New York Civil Liberties Union on a proposal to revise the state’s drug laws, which continue to send large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics to prison — groups that are overrepresented in high-incarceration neighbourhoods.
New York hasn’t signed on to justice reinvestment. The state’s prison population reached a high in the late 1990s, but dropped as the crack epidemic waned and New York City threw money into aggressive policing in high-crime areas.
Police are highly visible in Brownsville. At the Van Dyke Community Center — run by the New York City Housing Authority and just up the street from the BRC — cruisers are parked outside as police come and go.
Wanted posters for two suspected killers sit on a shelf in the lobby, close to where kids play and a grandmother warns outsiders to get out before dark.
But that’s not the message Greg Jackson wants to hear.
“We love each other in Brownsville.So the hope is still there. I tell my daughters and my sons that I’m paying for your education, that I want you to go and get this education, but I don’t want you to leave the neighbourhood. Not yet. You can leave later on. But come back and say, ‘let me save somebody’s life. Let me help somebody else.’ ” Contact the reporting team at crimepunish@thestar.ca

SCO and the Brownsville Partnership

2010-01-31T18:11:00.000-08:00

As SCO works towards strengthening the community, another important factor is their ability to collaborate with our fellow community-based organizations. This year, SCO became part of the Brownsville Partnership, an initiative of Common Ground, to address the many issues that are associated with poverty in the high need Brownsville community. As a member of the Partnership, SCO is providing a full range of early childhood programs — Nurse-Family Partnership, Parent-Child Home and Baby & Me. SCO is the first NFP program in the New York City area to be part of a larger community-wide mission that brings together best practices in family and community development.

Brownsville Recreational Center & Playground

2010-01-31T18:04:00.000-08:00

The Brownsville Recreation Center takes its name from the neighborhood that it serves. Brownsville, bounded by Eastern Parkway, Van Sinderen Avenue to the east, Linden Boulevard to the south, and Rockaway Parkway to the west, was first developed in 1865 by Charles S. Brown. Brown purchased a section of farm and meadowland and built 250 frame houses, hoping to lure the working class from lower Manhattan and western sections of Brooklyn to his modestly priced homes. Brown was certain that he would not be able to convince the bourgeoisie to relocate in “Brownsville,” as the area was to be called, because it was downwind of the odors from the marshes and bone-boiling factories of Jamaica Bay.

Brownsville’s development proceeded slowly, partly because it was difficult to get to. The neighborhood remained little more than a farming village until 1887. In that year, a Jewish real estate agent by the name of Aaron Kaplan purchased local lots, and built tenement housing, which attracted significant numbers of Jews seeking to escape the crowding of the Lower East Side. With the opening of the Fulton Street elevated railway (1889), followed by that of the Williamsburg Bridge (1903), the population of Brownsville ballooned, and by 1910, the neighborhood was filled with tenement apartment buildings. With no sewers or paved streets, and abounding in sweatshops and pushcarts, Brownsville began to look much like the lower Manhattan neighborhoods that its residents had sought to escape.

During the 1920s, with better access to rapid transit (the IRT extension in 1922), conditions in the area improved markedly, and the neighborhood prospered through the 1940s. Brownsville was a center of labor radicalism, supporting socialist candidates for public office throughout the first half of the 20th century. Margaret Sanger, a pioneer of women’s reproductive rights, opened America’s first birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in 1916. Aaron Copland, the composer, hailed from Brownsville, alongside writers such as Henry Roth and Alfred Kazin. Heavyweight champions Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe also grew up in the area. Like many neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs, Brownsville experienced decline during the post-war years, however, a fresh wave of immigrants, particularly from Caribbean nations, has brought renewed vibrancy.

This recreation center, known initially as the Brownsville Boys’ Club, first opened in 1953, after years of planning by a group of civic-minded Brooklynites under the guidance of Abe Stark, President of the City Council of New York (later Brooklyn Borough President). The Brownsville Boys’ Club, originally a one-room clubhouse, was affiliated with the larger Boys & Girls Club of America (founded 1860). Through vigorous leadership, unceasing effort, and the public-spirited generosity of many sponsors, $1.5 million was raised to reopen the now updated club as a City Parks and Recreation facility. After a period of negotiation, this facility was bestowed as an official gift upon the City of New York on September 23, 1954, to re-open in January of 1955.

The recreation center benefited from major renovations projects throughout the late 1990s. In 1996, with $400,000 in funds from Borough President Howard Golden, general repairs were made to the center. In 1998, with funding from the mayor’s office, there was a $265,000 reconstruction of heating and air conditioning equipment on the roof. The roof of the center was fixed, and security lighting installed with another $1,060,000 in mayoral funds. In 2008 Brownsville Playground received $1.5 million in improvements, including a new turf field for athletics and a renovated playground. The athletic field was converted from asphalt to synthetic turf for softball, soccer, and football and new fencing, backstops, benches and drinking fountains were added. A second phase will install state-of-the-art recreational lights for nighttime play.

Council Member Darlene Mealy, Chair of the Contracts Committee

2010-01-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

New York City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy is now the Chair of the New York City Council Contracts Committee formerly held by Councilwoman Letitia James. This committee oversees the Procurement Policy Board, review of City procurement policies and procedures, oversight over government contracts, Mayor's Office of Contracts, and collection agency contracts. Great things are happening in the Brownsville community as well as in and around BROOKLYN, USA.

Cameras To Boost Two Brooklyn Housing Projects’ Security

2010-01-31T17:59:00.000-08:00

Cameras To Boost Two Brooklyn Housing Projects’ SecurityNY109/18/2009Jeanine Ramirez

All levels of government helped fund a multimillion-dollar initiative to make some Brooklyn housing projects safer. Borough reporter Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.
Marie Boone talked Friday about the fear of being a victim of crime at the Tilden Houses in Brownsville.
“When you leave your home at 5 o’clock in the morning to go to work, you should not have to wonder, ‘Should I run down the stairs or should I ride the elevator?’” said Boone, the president of the Tilden Houses Tenants Association.
Members of the Tilden Houses Tenants Association voluntarily help patrol the eight-building complex as a safety measure, and soon they will getting high-tech aides in their effort - dozens of surveillance cameras.
“These volunteers will get many more eyes and ears. Our police officers will get many more eyes and ears by the cameras we’re going to install,” said Senator Charles Schumer.
The senator was in Brownsville Friday to announce he secured $400,000 in federal money for security cameras to be placed in Tilden Houses as well as the Brownsville Houses located across the street. Those funds come in addition to $2 million from Borough President Marty Markowitz and another $1 million from City Council member Darlene Mealy.
In total, $3.4 million will be spent on beefing up security at these two development complexes.
“We were thrilled to do it. Absolutely thrilled,” said Markowitz.
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to reduce the crime in the Brownsville Houses, which is just terrible,” said Brownsville Houses Tenants Association President Laura Morgan.
Both housing projects are part of what the NYPD calls its “Impact Zone,” developments with a high concentration of crime. Currently, 114 police officers from the 73rd Precinct currently patrol the area, but they will get help from the security cameras placed in building elevators, lobbies, mailbox areas, entrances and exits.
“The cameras are not just going to be facing inside but facing the streets on the outside,” said Brownsville resident Greg Jackson.
The New York City Housing Authority began installing cameras in its developments about five years ago. While 80 complexes citywide are equipped with the technology and have seen a decrease in crime, another 250 housing projects remain without.
“Every time we can add a development to our list, believe me, we’re making progress in an important cause,” said NYCHA Chairman John B. Rhea.
Tenants will start seeing cameras installed in November.